No trip to Cleveland would be complete without a visit to the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame. In fact, many come to Cleveland as a pilgrimage to these hallowed grounds, and you’d be hard pressed to find more music artifacts in one place, anywhere. We visited with our family in late June of 2025. On our second visit here, we were amazed at how the exhibits change somewhat regularly, marveled at some of the newer movies you could watch, and had a hard time picking souvies at the massive gift shop.

Tickets here are timed and electronic only, and I would highly recommend you purchase your tickets online in advance. It’s open every single day of the week, and tickets cost $39.50 for adults and $29.50 for kids. Depending on how much you like to read placards in museums, I would set aside at least 3-4 hours here.

Note that right now, there is a lot of construction going on. They are massively expanding the museum to include a concert venue and some other new buildings. As such, there is less street parking available around the museum, but you can still find a spot nearby, especially if you’re going in the morning. We found an actual free parking spot right next to the museum, but there are also metered spots around there too. There are parking garages around, but if you’re staying in Downtown Cleveland, your best bet is probably an Uber or even simply walking there.

On this visit, we started on the lower level, where the new SNL50 exhibit was going on. We all thought this was one of the highlights of the day – with various costumes from different music-based sketches like Waynes World and the Blues Brothers, lots of videos of different performances, and really cool exhibit pieces, such as the picture of the Pope that Sinead O’Connor ripped up on stage in 1992, most pieces jigsawed back together.

After the SNL50 exhibit, you wind through other more permanent exhibits such as women of rock, history of rock, and special permanent exhibits dedicated to the greats such as Elvis, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, and the Rolling Stones. The music is LOUD and there’s an air of excitement throughout this place – it’s super cool!

As you make your way up the five levels of exhibits, you start to come across more interactive exhibits, as well as an actual wall of fame, movies, and an area dedicated to the most recent inductees. There’s something for everyone here, not just rock n’ roll fans!

We really loved the movie that featured induction ceremonies, featuring mash-ups with the likes of Prince together with Tom Petty and more. It really made me want to look up previous induction ceremony concerts to check them out. Towards the top is the permanent “Pink Floyd’s The Wall” exhibit which is hugely epic and cool to check out!

Another fun interactive exhibit is “The Garage” where you can learn to play guitar or bass, and jam out guitar hero style, but with real instruments.

Note that there is a pretty sizable cafe offering a bunch of hot and cold food and drinks on the main level, and there are plenty of bathroom facilities everywhere. The ceiling of the main lobby atrium also has artifacts hanging in the air, such as cars used on the stage of U2’s Zoo TV tour. The gift shop is chock full of vinyl and we spent a lot of time checking that out, as well as a huge library of rock biographies and other trinkets.

Visiting the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame was one of the highlights of our long weekend in Cleveland. I would recommend coming here, even if you’re not a huge music or rock n’ roll fan, and I would even recommend a special trip to Cleveland just to visit this super cool museum. Cleveland Rocks!