ENTERTAINMENT AND CULTURE
Best Charitable Event
How many charitable events can take you from Kansas City to Africa and back in a single evening? Jazzoo can, and Africa is just for starters. This annual fund-raiser for the Kansas City Zoo receives Gold honors from readers this year—not just for the cause, but for the experience. Likewise, Treads & Threads, a benefit for the University of Kansas Hospital, finishes strong with the Silver this year. For more than a decade, it has twinned two great Wyandotte County institutions—the hospital as beneficiary, the Kansas Speedway as venue—to raise funds for research and treatment.
Best Casino
With more than 2,500 slots and video poker machines, many with less than 90 days of use on them, plus 57 gaming tables and a 184-room hotel, Ameristar Casino Hotel Kansas City has a lot to offer, and readers say that’s worth Gold. But nearby Harrah’s North Kansas City Casino, with video poker and video keno to supplement more than 1,600 slots, table games and poker [and nearly 400 rooms of its own], is a considerable force in Kansas City gaming, earning Silver this year. Rounding out this field is a newcomer to the Kansas City scene: Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway, which brings home the Bronze, featuring penny slots all the way up to $100 betting among its selection of 2,000 slots, with an adjacent hotel in the works.
Best Theater
The pending sale to a Chinese cinema giant did little to diminish Kansas City’s respect for AMC Theatres, founded here more than 90 years ago. Again, AMC garners Gold for roughly 120 screens locally—it operates more than 5,000 nationwide—with formats that include 3D, Imax and a Dine-In Theatre experience. Readers also had high praise for the unique venue at Starlight Theatre, which combines popular stage shows and music acts with an outdoor setting in a Silver award-winning atmosphere.
Best Family Outing/Venue
Yes, we’ve added Legoland Discovery Center and Sea Life Aquarium to a rich quilt of family offerings in this region, but the Kansas City Zoo remains the 800-pound Golden gorilla of kid-centric outings with our readers. The zoo continues to upgrade, modernize and expand, providing new experiences every year. Starlight Theatre, no stranger to fan voting, again raises the curtain on the Silver honors, while another time-tested Kansas City attraction, Worlds of Fun, weighs in with Bronze.
Best Golf Course
A great many of us may never have the opportunity to swing a club at Hallbrook Country Club, but for those who have done so, the experience is unforgettable. That’s just one reason why Ingram’s readers—again—have declared it the Gold winner among golfing venues in the region. The experience on the links at Mission Hills Country Club warrants Silver accolades from readers, reaffirming its long-held reputation as being among the region’s finest courses. And the work that Tom Watson has done in redesigning and upgrading the course at Loch Lloyd Country Club has earned it this year’s Bronze winner.
Best Jazz or Blues Club
The demise of Jardine’s, for six years the dominant player in this category, opened up room on the medals stand here, and taking full advantage for Gold honors is The Phoenix Jazz Club, an iconic venue in northwestern Downtown that features the likes of Lonnie McFadden and Millie Edwards & Mike Pagan. BB’s Lawnside BBQ chimes in with the Silver, offering proof positive that Kansas City is where you find the best of both jazz and barbecue. And The Blue Room, in 18th and Vine District’s American Jazz Museum, snags Bronze.
Best Local Entertainer
Back for yet another Gold-level performance is Ida McBeth, a Kansas City institution in her own right, and master of blues, jazz, and R&B—and more. World traveler David Basse cranks out his unforgettable voice that earns this year’s Silver honors, and the Bronze goes to The Elders, a sextet that is Kansas City’s contribution to Irish-American folk rock.
Best Museum
Try it. Just try to dislodge the grip that the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has on this category’s Gold status. Kansas City has no shortage of historical or cultural venues, but the Nelson has been doing this longer—since 1933—and better than the others. The Silver is awarded to the National World War I Museum, which is gearing up for the centennial observation of the onset of the Great War [back before we had the sense to start numbering them] in 2014. And the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum in Independence straight-talks its way to Bronze honors.
Best Art Gallery
See “Best Museums,” above. Yep, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, bolstered in recent years by the additional space and showing capability of the Bloch Building, is Gold stuff with our readership. Repeating last year’s 1-2-3 lineup, the Silver again goes to the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, while the Bronze is again found not in the central city, but in the suburbs, at Johnson County Community College’s Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art.
Best Day Trip
Some things are just traditional, period, and it takes something special to change the way we view our rituals. Weston, Mo., then, is a ritual, a place where the locals must regard Kansas City residents the way people in Capistrano regard swallows making appearances there year after year. So Weston it is for Gold-level shopping, wining, live music, and dining. College loyalties come to the fore in this land of Border War history: Lawrence, Kan. [population 92,000] is our Silver winner, and not for just the allure of athletic events at the University of Kansas: its restaurant collection on Massachusetts Avenue is among the best in the country for a community that size. Mizzou and other fans alike, meanwhile, flock to Columbia, Mo. in Bronze fashion, a lure likely to be strengthened as the Tigers begin competing this year in the Southeastern Conference.
Best Weekend Getaway
You get the corporate equivalent of the military’s three-day pass: What to do with it? Even without the need to board a plane, a great many attractions compete for your tourist dollar in the two-state region. The first choice of many from Kansas City, as is the case with people in St. Louis, is the Lake of the Ozarks. It earns the Gold, on the strength of its reach—55,000 acres of water, nearly 1,200 miles of shoreline, bustling waterways and intimate hide-aways included. Branson, Mo. takes the Silver, with more than 300 theaters and restaurants beckoning, as do more than a dozen golf courses. And among the many diversions for the kids, few have the staying power of Silver Dollar City. Cross-state St. Louis, Mo. takes the Bronze for its many attractions that include both National League baseball and a second NFL franchise for the state in the Rams.
Best Performing Arts Venue
Come on, you knew it was going to happen when the doors to the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts opened last September. Sure enough, the Kauffman registers Gold with this year’s voters, who have embraced its two-venue design for theatrical and musical performances. The new, though, had quite a challenge from the traditional, where Starlight Theatre earned Silver for its Broadway productions, musical shows and outdoor setting. Weighing in with Bronze is the restored Midland Theater.
Best Sports Event to Entertain Clients
Major League Baseball’s selection of Kansas City for the 2012 All-Star Game may have had some influence with readers, who voted a day at The K, Kauffman Stadium, as Gold medalist for best sporting event to mix business with pleasure. After dazzling the soccer world for the quality of fan experience and racking up sellout crowds for its first full season last year, LiveStrong Sporting Park registered Silver with voters this year. And the other half of the Truman Sports Complex, Arrowhead Stadium, came in with a solid showing for Bronze. A reflection, perhaps, on the hard times that befell the Chiefs in 2011, but take heart, Red and Gold fans: A whole new season is about to beckon. “We’re Coming Back Kansas City—Come Along!” 
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