Clark County is hosting the 1 October Memorial Design Concept & Creative Expressions Exhibit through Thursday, Oct. 19, in the Rotunda Gallery, located on the first floor of the Clark County Government Center in downtown Las Vegas at 500 S. Grand Central Parkway.

The exhibit showcases a concept by JCJ Architecture that was selected to serve as the design recommendation for the community’s permanent memorial as well as a selection of creative expressions that were submitted to the County’s 1 October Memorial Committee as part of its process for gathering ideas from public for the memorial. The exhibit features a model and story boards from JCJ Architecture highlighting its “Forever One Memorial” with a garden area, a tower of glass with 58 candles and 22,000 lights representing the number of people in attendance at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in October 2017. Encircling the JCJ exhibit are several original artworks created in response to Clark County’s 1 October Memorial Committee Call for Creative Expressions. Items on display include poems, drawings, paintings, quilts and concepts for the memorial including a “Vegas Strong Freedom Plaza” and a Route 91 tribute sculpture containing guitars and cowboy boots. An artist’s reception will be held in the Rotunda Gallery on Sunday, Oct. 1, following the annual Sunrise Remembrance Ceremony in the Government Center Amphitheater at 7:30 a.m. Representatives from the JCJ Architecture design team as well as the creators of the creative expression designs have been invited to participate in the reception. The Rotunda Gallery will be open until noon on Oct. 1.

“Thanks to the dedicated efforts of our 1 October Memorial Committee, we have a design concept for a memorial that reflects input from family members of victims, survivors and our community,” said Clark County Commission Chairman Jim Gibson. “This exhibit is a tribute to the work of our committee and the process its members put into place to gather extensive input from the public for what a memorial should look like. The results are something all of us can be proud of.”

“It was important for us to take our time with developing a concept for a memorial that will honor those who were lost as well as all those whose lives were changed forever,” said Clark County Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick. “What shines through in this year’s exhibit is our journey to find love and light as a community despite the darkness that occurred six years ago.”

The exhibit includes a video monitor showing images of the memorial design concept as well as an assortment of creative expression submissions. Creative expressions submissions also can be viewed in an online gallery on the memorial committee’s website at ClarkCountyNV.gov/1OctoberMemorial. Also included are The Art of Healing Mural and Angels of Love exhibits that were created in remembrance of the first anniversary of 1 October. The mural, containing nine large teddy bear images representing the 58 lives lost on 1 October, was created by local artists and students at Las Vegas Academy of the Arts high school. The public was invited to write condolence messages on the mural the first year it was on display. The Angels of Love exhibit, created by a California-based nonprofit organization, contains stain-glass angels in remembrance of those who perished and the hundreds who were injured, as well as memorabilia dedicated to first responders who sprang into action to help victims. A sculpture of two butterflies on display represents the victims of the attack who succumbed to their injuries in the years after 2017.

A calendar of community-related 1 October remembrance events scheduled during September and October is available on the Vegas Strong Resiliency Center’s website at www.vegasstrongrc.org. 

On Thursday, Sept. 28, 9 a.m.to 1 p.m., Clark County is partnering with the Vegas Strong Resiliency Center and Vitalant to host a remembrance blood drive at the Government Center. Vitalant’s bloodmobile will be parked along the driveway of the outdoor amphitheater. Donors can schedule appointments now to participate online at www.donors.vitalant.org using the Blood Drive Code of L1T54 or call Vitalant at (877) 258-4825. Walk-in donors also will be welcomed.

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Clark County is a dynamic and innovative organization dedicated to providing top-quality service with integrity, respect, accountability, leadership and excellence. With jurisdiction over the world-famous Las Vegas Strip and covering an area the size of New Jersey, Clark is the nation’s 11^th-largest county and provides extensive regional services to 2.3 million citizens and 41 million visitors a year (2022). Included are the nation’s 8^th-busiest airport, air quality compliance, social services and the state’s largest public hospital, University Medical Center. The County also provides municipal services that are traditionally provided by cities to 1 million residents in the unincorporated area. Those include fire protection, roads and other public works, parks and recreation, and planning and development.