The original “boneyard” for broken, defunct, and replaced Las Vegas signs was behind the YESCO plant on Cameron Street just south of Tropicana, where they were forgotten and subject to elements and entropy. In 1996, the city of Las Vegas and the Allied Arts Council of Southern Nevada got together and established the Neon Museum to preserve this unique part of Las Vegas history. Today, the non-profit organization occupies a big piece of property on Las Vegas Blvd. just north of downtown, consisting of the old La Concha Motel lobby from the Strip, the two-acre Neon Boneyard, and the North Gallery.
For many years, we’d intended to review the Neon Museum and finally got around to it.
You check in at the La Concha building, where you can buy tickets or show your pass purchased online. From there, you walk into the main Boneyard, where more than 200 neon signs and other pieces from a couple of hundred Las Vegas properties are collected and displayed. To say that this is a wonderland of symbolic Las Vegas history is an epic understatement. It’s quite a thrill, even overwhelming to start, to lay eyes on these bright slices of the past; small or large, famous or obscure, monochrome or multicolored, they’re all as rare as they are fascinating.
Be sure to access the museum’s app via a sign with the QR code for the self-guided walking tour with 25 stops. The signs start just down the stairs and to the right of the gift shop and under the towering Hard Rock guitar; you walk the loop counterclockwise. In addition, informational signs along the path impart more historical details about what you’re seeing: signs from the Golden Nugget, Moulin Rouge (one of the biggest and brightest), Binion’s, Sassy Sally’s, several motels, a pool hall, a dry cleaners, a dairy (established 1907), the Green Shack restaurant (one of the longest lived in Vegas history), Treasure Island (a lying-down skull), wedding information, the Riviera and Sahara, even an Ugly Duckling (car rental).
It’s a dirt yard covered in gravel and since there’s a lot of wandering involved, it’s best to wear good walking shoes.
You can also pay for a tour led by highly knowledgeable guides. One idea is to do it on your own and perhaps catch some snippets from the guide or guides as you go; then, if you’re really into it, you can came back and take the tour.
Best is to come 20 minutes before sundown to see all the signs, including the ones that won’t be lit up; many aren’t. When it gets dark, you see all the illuminated signs — spectacular against the desert night sky and a new perspective. (You’ll also save by buying the daytime admission and taking it into the night.)
Another attraction at the Neon Museum is “Brilliant,” a 20-minute or so “audiovisual immersion experience” that takes place in the North Gallery. “Brilliant” reanimates 40 more vintage signs via eight projectors housed by the two Champagne-bubble cylinders designed to resemble the one from the original Flamingo; two dozen 3D speakers amplify the soundtrack of classic tunes about gambling and Las Vegas.
You gather in a park across the street from the lobby and at the appointed time, a guide takes you over to the North Gallery. The outside wall has a long mural depicting some historical moments that the guide describes; then he opens the gallery and you file into the first space to see a short video from the artist who put together the show. From there, you walk around to the outdoor “showroom” for the presentation.
After two hours on our feet touring the main Boneyard and waiting for “Brilliant” on a cold and windy early-spring evening, we didn’t enjoy as much as we could or should have. If you have to see everything, you should catch it, but if you don’t, you can probably miss it. (Here’s a link to the video.)
You leave the Neon Museum and drive south back into downtown and the neon night. As you pass all the historical signs installed along Las Vegas Blvd. and the original Glitter Gulch, you can’t help but be thankful that the museum is preserving this important part of Las Vegas’ past.
Daytime admission to the museum is $20 adult, $10 (7-17 years old), and $15 military; evening is $25/$12.50/$20. With the “Brilliant” package, add $17. The guided tour is another $8.