Conner Prairie is a 1,046-acre living history museum on the White River in Fishers, and it is two places in one. Outside, from spring through fall, kids do chores in an 1836 village, climb a four-story treehouse, meet heritage-breed farm animals and ride a tethered helium balloon. Inside, the two-story Museum Experience Center, which opened April 3, 2026, is open all year, with a climbable sycamore tree and a foam quarry in Wellspring, a Smithsonian-developed invention lab and a sensory room. Conner Prairie calls itself Indiana’s first Smithsonian Affiliate.
Our guide to Indianapolis museums for kids covers the area’s other museums.
- Hours, tickets and parking
- Inside the Museum Experience Center
- Outdoors: Prairietown, the balloon and the treehouse
- Where to start by age
- Festivals and annual events
- Ways to save
- Parent tips
- Upcoming events
Conner Prairie 2026: Hours, Tickets and Parking
- Address: 13400 Allisonville Road, Fishers, IN 46038; 317-776-6000
- Nov. 3-Dec. 28, 2026: Museum Experience Center only, Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
- Admission (spring through fall): $26 adults 13 and older, $24 seniors 65 and older, $20 youth, free under 2, sold on Conner Prairie’s ticket page
- Parking: free, in front of and beside the Museum Experience Center
Conner Prairie is closed Mondays during the day and all day on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. From Nov. 3 through Dec. 28, 2026, only the indoor Museum Experience Center is open during the day, and the outdoor grounds are open for A Merry Prairie Holiday on 17 evenings.
All visitors enter through the Museum Experience Center. General admission is half price after 3 p.m. at the ticket desk, which leaves one hour before the 4 p.m. closing. Members get in free. The museum is cashless, with no ATM, and takes cards and mobile payments. Kids younger than 16 must stay with an adult.
The Trails at Conner Prairie, a paved path and a gravel path, are closed until further notice after the August 2026 flooding.
Inside the Museum Experience Center (Open Year-Round)
Wellspring is part art installation, part playscape, on the second floor. Kids climb into a sycamore tree, jump into a foam quarry, crawl through passageways and nooks, decode a made-up 28-letter alphabet and search for 13 animal and plant characters, from a butterfly to a great blue heron. It also has a 180-degree cinema. Wellspring Studio adds an art activity, included with admission, Wednesday through Friday from 1 to 4 p.m.
Spark!Lab is an invention lab developed by the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center, with wind tunnels, soundscapes, bridge building and vehicle design. The activities rotate, so a return visit can look different.
Power of Place is a multimedia walk through 22,000 years of White River history, and TORN: A Family Portrait tells the story of the Conner families and the removal of the Lenape people. Caring for Collections looks into the museum’s collections vault and lab. A separate gallery hosts rotating traveling exhibits.
The second floor also has the Harvest Café, with a kids menu of chicken tenders, mac and cheese and grilled cheese; the Ricker Prairie Overlook; family restrooms and parent rooms; and a Sensory Room.
Outdoors: Prairietown, the Balloon and the Treehouse (Spring Through Fall)
1836 Prairietown
Prairietown is a village of costumed townspeople set in 1836. Kids sit in the one-room schoolhouse, help with chores and watch tradespeople at work in the blacksmith shop, the carpenter shop and the pottery shop. They can also play 1830s games such as hoop and sticks, ninepins and a tug-of-war called French and English.
Promised Land as Proving Ground is a permanent exhibit in four buildings in and around Prairietown. It covers Black history from pre-colonial Africa to today through film, augmented reality on the Timelooper app and hands-on activities. Conner Prairie notes that the videos bring moderate noise and light.
William Conner House and Lenape Camp
Every room of the William Conner House has objects kids can pick up and inspect, and they can plan a historical meal and visit the heirloom garden and the Loom House. At Lenape Camp, kids learn to throw a tomahawk, try basket making and pottery, climb into a dugout canoe and trade at the Trading Post.
Animal Encounters
The barn holds rare heritage breeds: English Longhorn cattle, Ossabaw hogs, Arapawa goats, Tunis sheep and American rabbits. The animal specialists take questions, and Heritage Breeds Week comes in May.
Treetop Outpost, Fort Hoosier and the Ag Adventures Playground
Treetop Outpost is a four-story treehouse with a seek-and-find challenge at the top, a reading room and magnifying tools. Below it are a sand dig area with shovels and brushes, a building area with blocks and fabric and a set of outdoor instruments. Fort Hoosier adds a cargo net and a climbing wall. Staff lend Adventure Backpacks filled with nature-discovery tools, and the treehouse’s second level is accessible.
The Ag Adventures Playground at Estridge Family Park is built so kids of all abilities can play side by side, with a climbing wall, disc swings, a flush-mounted merry-go-round, slides and a farmer xylophone.
The Junction: River Crossing Splash Pad and Discovery Station
Across the covered bridge, The Junction holds the River Crossing splash pad, where kids board the Alice Dean steamboat, fire water cannons and float toy boats. It runs Memorial Day through Labor Day and has storage cubbies, shade and a nursing room with dimmable lights. Discovery Station, in the old Dry Goods Store, is a spot to read, make art and take a quiet break. The Junction also has the Schoolhouse, with hands-on nature, science and creativity activities, and the Summer Kitchen.
1859 Balloon Voyage
The tethered helium balloon rises up to 370 feet for a 10- to 15-minute ride, with up to 20 people in the gondola. Ride tickets are sold on site and cost extra on top of general admission: $19 for ages 13 and older and $11 for ages 2 to 12, or $15 and $10 for members. The balloon doesn’t fly in thunderstorms within 30 miles, wind over 24 mph, clouds below 1,000 feet or temperatures of 90 degrees and up; you get a refund or a rain check when it’s grounded. It does not fly during A Merry Prairie Holiday. The gondola takes wheelchairs up to 25.5 inches wide by ramp.
One of our writers, a longtime Conner Prairie regular, makes the balloon the very last stop and uses the promise of it to keep kids moving through the rest of the day.
Where to Start by Age
Conner Prairie doesn’t post age ranges for its attractions, only for its programs. Here’s where each age group can start.
Babies to preschoolers: Wellspring and the Sensory Room indoors; the Ag Adventures Playground, River Crossing and Discovery Station in season. Read, Rock & Roll is a morning of breakfast treats and a stroller walk with spots to stop and read, for ages 0 to 6, and Playtime on the Prairie runs outdoor summer sessions for ages 0 to 2 and 3 to 5. Every Playtime session sold out in summer 2026, so register as soon as dates go up.
Ages 5 to 10: Prairietown chores and games, the Treetop Outpost seek-and-find, Animal Encounters, Lenape Camp and Spark!Lab. Adventure Camp is for ages 5 to 13 and runs weekly from May 24 to July 30, 2027.
Tweens and teens: the balloon, Promised Land as Proving Ground, the TORN and Power of Place galleries and the Headless Horseman festival in October. Most of Conner Prairie’s classes are for ages 10 and older.
Festivals and Annual Events
Coming up:
- Holiday Heritage Market: Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026, 10 a.m.-3 p.m., with handmade pottery and textiles and meat from Conner Prairie’s heritage breeds
- Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra “Moonstrike”: Saturday, Nov. 14, 2026, 11-11:45 a.m. in the TORN gallery; a string quartet with a narrator, free with admission
- A Merry Prairie Holiday: 17 nights, Nov. 27-Dec. 28, 2026, 5:30-9:30 p.m., with timed entry; $26, $15 members, $10 with an Access Pass, free under 2
- Breakfast with Santa: Nov. 28 and Dec. 5, 6, 12, 13, 19 and 20, 2026, at 8:30 or 11:30 a.m.; $45.95 adults, $29.95 youth, free under 2; reservations required
Our Merry Prairie guide has the full schedule, the add-ons and our tips for the night, and our breakfast with Santa roundup compares this breakfast with the others around town.
Through the year:
- Monthly: Sensory Friendly Sundays, 10 a.m.-noon in the Museum Experience Center, with a sensory version of Power of Place, the Sensory Room and visits from volunteer therapy dogs; free with admission
- May: Heritage Breeds Week at Animal Encounters
- June: a free Juneteenth admission day
- Summer: Symphony on the Prairie, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra’s outdoor concert series, from late June through Labor Day weekend, with a Star-Spangled Symphony around the Fourth of July
- September: the Jupiter Flights Balloon Festival, Indiana’s largest hot air balloon festival by Conner Prairie’s count (calendar listing)
- September and October: the Apple Store and its caramel apples, plus the corn maze, free with admission
- October: the Headless Horseman festival, Thursday through Sunday nights, with a hayride (calendar listing)
One of our writers has found that Jupiter Flights gets crowded once it’s dark, when a child can slip out of sight quickly near the playground or the balloons. That writer’s family once borrowed a vendor’s pen to write a parent’s phone number on the kids’ arms.
Ways to Save and Free Days
- Indiana Access Pass: $5 a person for daytime general admission and $10 for A Merry Prairie Holiday, with an Access Pass card and an Indiana photo ID
- Juneteenth: free general admission all day, one of several Indianapolis free museum days around that date
- Bank of America Museums on Us: free general admission for the cardholder on the first full weekend of each month (Nov. 7-8 and Dec. 5-6, 2026)
- Military: free with ID for active-duty, retired and veteran service members; half price for spouses and kids
- After 3 p.m.: general admission is half price at the ticket desk
The Basic membership, $155 a year, covers two adults and youth, and the $190 Plus level adds two guests and a free designated caregiver, such as a nanny, who gets in with the member kids. You can put that day’s tickets toward a membership within seven days of your visit.
Parent Tips: Food, Strollers, Weather and Sensory Needs
- Pack a picnic. Outside food and drinks are welcome on the outdoor grounds and in the picnic areas, including the Hilltop Picnic Shelter, but not in galleries or historic buildings.
- Plan for gravel. Prairietown’s roads and paths are gravel and uneven, and strollers with bigger wheels handle them best. Bikes, scooters and wheeled shoes aren’t allowed.
- Getting around. The Museum Experience Center has elevators and is stroller accessible, and Conner Prairie lends manual wheelchairs at no charge, first come, first served. Pets aren’t allowed, except service dogs.
- Rain or lightning. The indoor spaces stay open during outdoor weather delays, and lightning within 10 miles clears the grounds.
- Sensory support. Quiet Spots around the grounds have sensory kits with a weighted blanket and soft toys. Conner Prairie says Power of Place and Wellspring can be overstimulating, and Power of Place has a sensory-friendly mode on request.
- Splash day. Pack towels and a change of clothes for River Crossing.
Conner Prairie is in Fishers, and our guide to things to do in Fishers with kids covers the rest of the city. Two other museums have their own guides: the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis and the Indiana State Museum.
Upcoming Events at Conner Prairie
Festivals, classes and special days at Conner Prairie, from our family events calendar:
[…] you from your day-to-day into the stories of yesterday and the traditions of tomorrow. Step into Conner Prairie’s historic Prairietown to visit the Christmas Eve traditions of the 1800s, then head up to the North […]