Your Kansas City CME conference.

Kansas City after your study day

Study days finish at 2:00 PM Kansas City time. For an easy afternoon, stroll among the fountains on the Country Club Plaza, spend time at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, or visit the museums at 18th and Vine. The Nelson-Atkins is closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so check its schedule before you plan around it.

Travel, lodging and attraction entry are arranged separately by you. The city is the setting for your own plans, and nothing here is scheduled around your study day.

The City of Fountains

Visit KC says there are more than 200 fountains scattered through the metro area, and the City of Fountains Foundation, established in 1973, builds, manages and maintains them. Major hubs include the Country Club Plaza and several urban parks, and downtown has had fountains since the late 1800s. The Firefighters Fountain and Memorial was dedicated in 1991 to honor six firefighters who died in an accident.

The tourism board singles out a few. The Henry Wollman Bloch Fountain in front of Union Station has 232 water jets. The Crown Center Square Fountain has jets choreographed to recordings by Kansas City Symphony members. The fountain in Mill Creek Park was built in Paris in 1910 and brought to Kansas City in 1951, and the Nelson-Atkins holds a marble basin bought in Italy in 1931 that dates to 220 A.D.

The Country Club Plaza

Visit KC describes the Plaza as 15 city blocks of Spanish-inspired architecture with dozens of fountains, shops, sidewalk cafes and patios. Horse-drawn carriage rides and gondola floats on adjacent Brush Creek are listed as activities, the Plaza Art Fair takes place each fall, and the Plaza Lights holiday display is described as an eight-decade tradition.

The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and the Kansas City Repertory Theatre on the UMKC campus are listed as nearby cultural stops. The tourism board also lists a Plaza hotel, so it is a workable base if you want shops and fountains close at hand.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

The museum is at 4525 Oak Street and describes itself as being at the cultural heart of Kansas City. Parking is in a garage on Oak Street, and the KC Streetcar has a stop for the museum. Its Bloch Building holds galleries, and visitors check in online or at a kiosk before entering galleries.

The museum says some Bloch galleries close on a rolling basis during 2026 for maintenance, so check current status before you go. The museum also has a sculpture park, the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park.

Jazz, galleries and neighborhoods

Visit KC calls 18th and Vine Kansas City’s historic jazz district. It lists the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, the American Jazz Museum, the Blue Room jazz club inside that museum, and the Mutual Musicians Foundation, where it says jam sessions were invented. The page does not give hours, so check each place before you go.

The Crossroads Arts District holds galleries in once-vacant warehouses, along with a mural tour, and its First Fridays art crawl has more than 70 shops and galleries across a 20-block area. Westport dates to the 1800s and has a walking trail with placards on the Battle of Westport, which the tourism board calls the largest Civil War conflict west of the Mississippi. The River Market is a 150-year-old riverfront neighborhood whose City Market farmers market runs every Saturday and Sunday year-round, with more than 140 stalls.

Union Station, Crown Center and the World War I Museum

Visit KC describes Crown Center as a city within a city, with more than 60 shops and restaurants and live theater, with Union Station next door and the National WWI Museum and Memorial to the south. The museum is at 2 Memorial Drive and says it holds the most diverse collection of WWI items in the world.

The museum is closed on Tuesdays from Labor Day to Memorial Day and open every day in summer. Its Liberty Memorial Tower takes an elevator and then 45 stairs to an open-air observation deck with a 360-degree view of the skyline, and the tower may close for part of a day in bad weather. Check the museum’s schedule against your 2:00 PM finish.

When to visit Kansas City

The National Weather Service’s 1991–2020 normals list July highs of 87°F to 89°F and lows of 67°F to 68°F, and January highs near 39°F with lows near 20°F. April highs rise from 61°F to 70°F, and October highs fall from 74°F to 61°F, with a normal of 3.25 inches of precipitation.

Getting to Kansas City and your study setting

Kansas City International Airport (MCI)’s website names rental cars at a consolidated rental car facility, rideshare at the arrivals curb, taxis and RideKC bus route 229 among the ways to reach the city, and links to the tourism board for hotels.

The map shows straight-line distances from Shift’s designated center. These are orientation distances, not driving distances or travel-time estimates. Check your exact address against the conference’s check-in area before booking.