The Leonardo

On a whim we decided to go in here after having lunch nearby. We initially were just going to see what they had, but decided to stick around and purchase admission. At first I thought it was a bit expensive considering what I saw on the 1^st floor which just seemed like a giant arts and crafts room. However, they have a 2^nd floor of exhibits which are worth the journey alone. If you have kids, interest in art, knowledge, or science, make this trek!

I love this place as an event venue probably even more than I love it as an educational center, which is saying a lot because I really like it!
I’ve had the pleasure of attending several private events at the Leo and it never disappoints. The space is just gorgeous and interactive and the staff are on point.
This is a fun place to go on a date or with the family. I love the interesting exhibits that come through, such as the recent Mummies of the World exhibit. It’s a little pricey but worth a couple of trips a year.

Eh, we went and saw mummies of the world which I really enjoyed. Tickets were $ 22.50 per person which was a little steep in my opinion. The mummies exhibit takes you about 30 – 40 minutes to go through. After that you can walk the museum which is pretty small. There’s not that much to do for adults and it’s actually pretty boring. We probably won’t be back unless they get another cool main exhibit.

A bit crowded but the mummies are we’ll worth it! Never knew there were so many different types

Came here on a Sunday with a Groupon for the Mummies of the World exhibit. Waited in line for 10 minutes. There were two parties ahead of us, and both had purchased tickets online. Seems a bit of an excessive wait. During this time, the line grew by 20 people. Ugh.
Went straight to the mummy exhibit, which was pretty good. The Groupon included an audio tour, which was okay. Not sure it’s worth the extra $ 5 per person but as I said, it was part of the package. Most of what they said on the audio was written on the exhibits, but it was nice to not to have to get right there to read it.
After the mummy exhibit we walked around the rest of the place. I wouldn’t call it a «museum». Lots of kinda oddly put together stations for learning. Many concepts seemed way over the heads of children who were there (at least that day).
I wouldn’t want to have paid full price (22.50+5.00 audio = $ 27.50) for the mummy exhibit. Regular passes to just the Leo are $ 10. Add to that parking and it’s not an inexpensive day, especially for a family.
Overall the mummy exhibit was worth it but the rest of the place. Meh.

The Mummy Exhibition was cool and interesting but the rest of the museum was underwhelming. Staff seemed disorganized and not the friendliest. Mummy Exhibition was pretty small. Too pricey. The museum was ‘okay’ at best. There are certainly more interesting places to go in Salt Lake City for that kind of money spent.

If you have a creative mind this is definitely one of the places to check out. I visited this locations it’s my fiancée and some family on a Saturday afternoon and attended The Mummy Exhibit. Upon entering the location [note: parking is all around the building and located next to the public library] we were greeted by two of the workers of the establishment and were told that due to the time constraint (closes @ 5) that the mummy exhibit may not be the best thing to pay for.
Luckily after some discussion we were welcomed in with a discount off the regular pricing. From there the whole location was opened to explore. There is a bistro that is available if you are hungry but for the tinkerer they have a snowflake making station with a blower that lets them fly. There also is a mind wall that you can attach additional ideas through. From there there are stations available to make stop motion videos, a green screen to mess around with and also a double mirror that makes your mind think of what it is doing. Although we were constrained with time we were able to still view the Mummy Exhibit and if you’ve never had a chance to learn the history or how they come to be I would definitely recommend checking it out.
The last part to review would have to be the second floor. It has a art exhibit for the people without homes but the more immersive side would have to be on the opposite side of the art exhibit. There is basically a learning station that lets you play with Legos, kinects, dry ice and bubbles and so much more. Since we were limited on time I didn’t really have a chance to see it all. But would love to come back and visit and check out the rest of The Leonardo.

Admission is $ 9.95 per person, exclusive of tax, pretty cheap for a museum visit. The normal exhibits wasn’t impressive though, but would be a a great place to bring your kids, not really a place for me, but still fun to check it out.

Think science museum for junior high school students and you shouldn’t be disappointed. The general admission gets you access to a sprawling, messy, mostly uninspired collection of children’s-type activities including blocks, legos, drawing stations, stop-​motion labs etc. There are lots of little mini-​exhibits, but I found them pretty boring. Do you remember those «Magic Eye» 3-​D pictures? Yep. About a half-​dozen of those slapped on the wall with a few black and white optical illusions. Ok. They have barber chairs you sit in for a «virtual hair cut,» but even with headphones on it’s impossible to hear anything over the clamor.
There was an exhibit on homelessness when we went and it was pretty bad. It was clearly put together by a consortium of non-​profit and governmental agencies for the purpose of advancing their own agendas, and it «read» much like a brochure or PSA; lots of romanticizing the homeless while baldly pushing for more money and more services. There was a section where they gave homeless people disposable cameras to shoot pictures, purporting to offer a «day in the life» type exhibit, but the pictures were so bland it only left me wondering what hit the cutting room floor. I was honestly surprised by how superficial and agenda-​driven the exhibit was, given how rich the topic is for exploration.

I went to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. Fantastic displays! But we felt tickets were expensive. The gift shop was nice. Somewhat difficult to find parking.

Like the Salt Bistro restaurant tied onto it, this has tons of potential, but let me spare you a bunch of time. If you’re probably 7 — 12 or so years of age, this will be great for you. If you fall outside of that range, you will experience diminishing returns, particularly if you’re on the lighter side of those numbers. On the plus side, it’s about half the cost of the other museums around, so there’s that. I guess you could use it as a child litmus test, to see how ready they are for a museum visit.
This is another interactive museum, in which nearly everything is meant to be experienced. Some of the displays were under construction (Tesla coil was sadly off), but the interactive nature is really why that age range becomes most relevant. Despite this museum making several attempts and overtures at adults, this really isn’t going to be resonant with the majority of adults. Certain things, like the interior decoration and architecture, particularly the Hylozoic Veil, are very interesting, but the audience gearing is for a much lower age. The Science lab is also particularly cool.
Upstairs is kind of a mess. The Pixel Playland is odd, with the tv screen inexplicably playing noisy nonsense, both in sound and vision, the entire time we were there. There was also a buffet set up when we were there, again, very oddly. What sort of irritated me about a lot of these interactive displays was that the kids could engage with them, but they were either duplicates from elsewhere or something that could be found and done outside the museum in more normal settings, such as at home or in school. This then begs the question of why pay to do that in this museum.
Museums are a tough gig and they all have to be unique on a certain level, but additionally, have to be interesting and engaging. Having them do something that worked somewhere else is both annoying and pointless. It’s also a bit of a dark, slightly dingy and uninviting place on the interior side, so it tends not be a particularly comfortable place to spend tons of time. I’ll probably swing back in a few years, if I’m still around in the area and my son’s old enough for it to be meaningful and still wants to go, but it’s not a visit I would consider on the necessary side of things.

This museum is definitely worth visiting once though I don’t know if it’s worth it to become a member. While the exhibits are quite interesting and entertaining, they seldom change and unlike your typical art museum, I don’t feel you learn anything new every time you go back.
The reason I would recommend returning is for the special events. The first one that I visited was Inside Out, an exhibit that showed the skeletons and muscle tissue of various animals including a small section for humans. The second was Body Worlds, which was essentially the same type of exhibit, but this time was exclusively human beings and the various skeletons, muscle tissues and organs that make up our bodies.
Honestly, it’s worth visiting whenever they have a new special exhibit. Their regular exhibits on the other hand are updated about as often as the special exhibits and I didn’t feel they were anything special.
I might be a little hard on them, they actually are a decent museum. I just feel with all the various museums Salt Lake City has to offer, this one is on the lower spectrum of those you should visit.

I attended the Mummies of the World Exhibit a while ago and I am so glad I was able to get a groupon for it! I don’t think I ever would have had the chance to go without one, and I really enjoyed myself. My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the different mummies, and even though the wait was a bit long (opening weekend) it was well worth it.
We also spent a lot of time in the kids area upstairs playing around and being, well childish lol. This a very educational museum and a wonderful place for a family fun day.

Came here to see the Body Worlds Exhibit before it leaves Utah. Admission was only $ 10 and that included the entire museum (not just the exhibit).
Body Worlds was pretty cool. Lots to see and learn. The rest of the museum is pretty exciting if you have kids because there are hands on projects and volunteers that will interact with the kids.
Glad I got to see the exhibit, but finished in little over an hour and wanted to leave.

Came to the Leonardo to view the Body Exhibit, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the general cost of admission was only $ 9 (half of the cost is covered by the church/​charity in Salt Lake)!
This museum is very interesting to run through, bringing back images of countless hours in bio, art, science, etc. — all rolled into one area! The Body Exhibit was definitely interesting, as you delve through the human biological makeup, and see the body dissected in such a way as to view the inner workings. A LOT of kids and families are present, and they end the exhibit with the process of ‘preservation’ that enables you to see the bodies in the exhibit.
Oh, and the Tesla lighting was quite the treat as well! Half a million volts of alternating current run through an amplifier and humming the sound of its people to the diverse age mix in the audience.
Last thing! If you come and buy a ticket, you also get 1 free admission ticket for another time!.. at least I did, so don’t blame me if you don’t. ;)

Couldn’t take any pictures of the bodies but it was a great experience to see how our muscles, bones, and everything inside our bodies work. It was an eye opening experience to eat healthier and start working out. You can carry this audio recording for an extra $ 5.00 but I didn’t bother really using it. There were a ton of people inside and it was annoying hearing all the other recordings. I was better off just reading the displays. Great to experience it once, but I probably wouldn’t do it again. There’s a lot of information to read and I can’t remember half of it. the rest of the Leonardo is great! There’s an arts and craft station, math lab, science lab, a big block Lego area, and bunch of other small intricates. I had more fun doing the activities than the body worlds personally.

We’ve been to The Leonardo three times now. Once to go through the general museum (non-​exhibit), once to go through the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, and lastly to go through the Body Worlds exhibit. I’ll give a description of each of the exhibits and my thoughts on them. The general cost is $ 9, the special exhibits cost more though (~$ 20).
1. I’m just going to come out and say it. The regular exhibits aren’t that great. They might be great to take the kids out to learn and have fun, but for a pair of 25 year olds we just didn’t have much fun going through the basic exhibits. $ 9 is what it will cost you, less for students and children, and there are various exhibits on different subjects. There are some interesting things, but I feel it’s definitely more geared towards children though.
2. Dead Sea Scrolls was amazing. I traveled to Israel a couple of years ago and got to see many of the things that were in this exhibit. I thought that this exhibit did just as good of a job, and some times even better of a job, than the museums in Jerusalem. They did a great job of explaining what the culture was in the area and had plenty of artifacts that were found. The exhibit was pretty big and featured a lot of interesting things along with good text to go along with it. We really enjoyed seeing parts of the dead sea scrolls.
3. Body Worlds was amazing. We started walking through and looked at the various stages of pre-​birth life. Then a guy came running in and told us that it was all real and that he had asked the guy working there about it. We were glad he came in and said it because we really weren’t sure at first. Everything in this exhibit is real, it’s hard to believe as you look at various bodies set in poses. There must have been around 30 bodies on display. It was very interesting and we learned a lot. Some parents had their 4 year old kid there… I can imagine he will be having nightmares about this for years.
Overall The Leonardo is a great place. We really enjoyed the exhibits we saw and thought they were very well done. The staff is very friendly and informative. We will go back to future exhibits.

We stopped by The Leonardo to see the Animals Inside Out Exhibit which was very very cool. It was a pretty quick exhibit but there were a lot of things to see.
After walking through we went upstairs to a water exhibit and checked out a couple of other things.
While the Leonardo certainly isn’t the largest museum I’ve ever ventured into it’s certainly a good one.
Tickets for entry couldn’t have been more than $ 20 which to me was a steal of the deal considering the prices I’m used to paying in the Bay Area.

I came here to see the Animal Inside Out exhibit. The exhibit. was strange. I just kept thinking about the weird guy who pumped all these dead animal carcasses with fluids and chopped these horse’s and camel’s heads down the cent into three pieces. But who’s really the weirdo here? I PAID to go see this?!
Anyway, the venue, The Leonardo, this was my first time there and I thought it was pretty awesome. Very high ceilings, lights adjusted to the exhibit you are there to see. When I went they had 3 other exhibits running as well which was cool. It’s calm, clean, even on Saturday.
I had no problems with this place and most of the exhibits there have discounted rates that can be found on Groupon for like half the cost. I’ll be back for whatever weird exhibit they have running next. Exhibits… exhibit…X to the Z Xzibit.

If you want hours of great entertainment this is the place. And if you want to entertain a child and maybe sneak in a little education, this is definitely the place.
The first thing that will catch your eye as you walk in is a huge white web-​like mass that looks like a sea creature. It’s actually a network of fiber optic cables that act «alive» as they react to your touch with light and movement.
There are dozens of exhibits about science, man’s creativity, math, geometry, color and design, film making, animation, water, sugar and candy were in today’s line-​up.
They were all pretty interesting, especially the animation and film making labs.
They have a nice gift shop and a snack bar.
There was a special exhibit today «Animals Inside Out».