Las Vegas Plans $45M Memorial to Remember Route 91 Shooting Victims by 2027
On May 8, advocates, lawmakers, and survivors gathered at the Nevada Legislature in Carson City to promote the Forever One Memorial. This new project will honor the victims, survivors, and…
LAS VEGAS, NV – OCTOBER 8: A hat is left at a makeshift memorial during a vigil to mark one week since the mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival, on the corner of Sahara Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard at the north end of the Las Vegas Strip, on October 8, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. On October 1, Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and injured more than 450 after he opened fire on a large crowd at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival. The massacre is one of the deadliest mass shooting events in U.S. history. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
On May 8, advocates, lawmakers, and survivors gathered at the Nevada Legislature in Carson City to promote the Forever One Memorial. This new project will honor the victims, survivors, and heroes of the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival tragedy in Las Vegas. The shooting destroyed 58 lives and affected nearly 2,500 attendees, making it the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
The Vegas Strong Fund is leading the fundraising to have $45 million by October 1, 2027, the 10-year anniversary of the shooting for the memorial. The memorial will be built at the original festival site on the Las Vegas Strip, where MGM Resorts International is donating the land. The Forever One Memorial is designed to have 58 illuminated butterflies, representing the lives lost, and 22 vertical stakes, representing an estimated 22,000 survivors. The structure's lighting and form are intended to reflect both remembrance and unity.
"We are forever one," said Tennille Pereira, Chair of the Vegas Strong Fund. "We can shape the narrative of what this is, that the darkness isn't going to win. That it's the light and us coming together and being united."
Remarks from a number of dignitaries were included in the ceremony, including Nevada State Senator John Steinbeck, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill, and Nevada State Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager. Yeager stressed the importance of the memorial going forward in the state's history as he said, "The Forever One Memorial not only honors those we lost, it reflects the best of who we are, a people that show up for one another, a state that remembers. Together, we'll ensure this memorial becomes a permanent part of Nevada's story and its future."
Kelly McMahill, a Vegas Strong Fund board member, highlighted the emotional depth behind the design. "We wanted to really encapsulate not just the sorrow and the grief that came out of this, but the absolute sheer joy everyone was having before this took place and the resiliency that's come out of it as part of the collective souls of all these people coming together and trying to make something positive out of this incident," she said.
