Leaves are changing color & dropping and the weather is finally starting to feel like Fall around Kansas City!  As you prepare to join 1500+ music therapists and students heading to Kansas City, here are five fun facts:

 

1) Leave the Yellow Brick Road jokes at home – you’re heading to Missouri, not Kansas! There are two Kansas Cities – Kansas City, Missouri (aka KCMO), where the conference will be held, and its smaller next-door neighbor Kansas City, Kansas (aka KCK). The road that divides them is creatively named State Line Road.

 

2) Kansas City’s nickname is the “City of Fountains” – it has more than 200 of them! Many of them were dyed blue to celebrate the Kansas City Royals for their playoff run and World Series championship.

 

3) According to Visit KC and the Kansas City Barbecue Society, KC has more barbecue restaurants per capita than any other US city. KC specialties include burnt ends and a tomato & molasses-based sauce. “What’s the best local barbecue restaurant?” is sure to incite a fight between locals, but Fiorella’s Jack Stack (near the conference hotel), Arthur Bryant’s, Joe’s Kansas City, and Gates are perennial favorites. Just don’t ask for KC Masterpiece sauce at any of them – their homemade sauces are much better!

 

4) Since 2010, actors/comedians Paul Rudd, Eric Stonestreet, Jason Sudeikis, Rob Riggle, and David Koechner, all of whom were born or raised in/near Kansas City, have hosted the Big Slick poker tournament & charity weekend to raise money for Children’s Mercy Hospitals, which employs several music therapists. They’ve raised over $96,000 so far.

 

5) Looking for 12th Street and Vine, like in the song? It’s a park now instead of an intersection, but you can get close by visiting the Jazz District at 18th and Vine.

 

See our Attractions & Dining pages for more of the great things Kansas City has to offer.

 

Want to see more? Check out a beautiful time-lapse video of the city called “Paris of the Plains” on Vimeo.

 

We’ll see you in Kansas City this week!