Veteran Las Vegas hospitality leader Cliff Atkinson took over as president and CEO at the iconic Fremont Street Experience in February, an interesting move for an executive who had been entrenched in luxury casino properties on or near the Strip for the better part of his 14 years in Southern Nevada. Atkinson has been president at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, Fontainebleau Las Vegas and Luxor Hotel & Casino.

So how does he feel now that he’s gone Downtown to the city’s original neon drag? “Just really excited,” he says. “I was down here scooping ice cream for Ben & Jerry’s free cone day and it was incredible to actually hear from customers how much they love being Downtown and under the canopy.”

Atkinson believes FSE is going through a bit of a renaissance as tourism moves through a period where visitors are really hunting for value, and he’s got a point. The open-air promenade lined with casinos just announced its annual Downtown Rocks free summer concert series, opening May 15 with country star Lee Brice, then celebrated Cinco de Mayo with more free, live entertainment that began at noon, on a Tuesday.

We checked in with the new prez to see what else he’s working on Downtown.

You were at Virgin and Fontainebleau prior to this, properties that have been going through changes and building their profile in Las Vegas. What were the lessons learned?

Absolutely. With every opportunity, I’m always learning. I’ve been doing this for over 30 years and I spent half my hospitality career with one company, Mandarin Oriental, which moved me to Vegas and taught me that Las Vegas is just different from any city where that company also operated. It’s different from anywhere on the planet. You have to think the way Las Vegas operates. What’s exciting about this opportunity is that it’s Downtown—the history of Las Vegas is here and still being created here and it is the authentic, genuine experience.

It’s also different because of the collaboration along Fremont Street, which is nothing like being on the Strip.

At the end of the day, everyone’s trying to get customers into properties, that’s the mission. But Downtown, the Fremont Street Experience—which just celebrated its 30th anniversary in December—has been working together and sharing that agenda of getting people to visit while doing what individual casinos do. That is different from the Strip and neighbor competing with neighbor. Downtown is really an experience as a collective and the individual, unique resorts. I have nine casinos on my board, and all of them are uniquely different and fantastic.

What is it about the Fremont Street Experience that keeps visitors coming back after all these years?

The thing that stands out the most is you’re never going to have the exact same experience twice. It’s a dynamic corridor you can compare to only a handful of places, Times Square, Bourbon Street, Broadway in Nashville. Fremont Street is walkable, the properties are close together, and people always like the value—not just recently, there’s always been high value. There’s a pretty diverse range of hotels, restaurants and bars, and people like that and they like the adventure of walking Fremont.

Everyone wants to feel like they’re getting a deal, and that truly is in the DNA of Downtown, but now more than ever it’s appreciated by our customers.

So how do you move something so unique yet familiar into the future without sacrificing those expectations of comfort?

We’re not launching something brand new. We’ve been here a long time. There’s a formula that works.

There’s a couple things I’ve found in my first 60 days on the job. People love the free entertainment and the campaign of “Always on” is meaningful. Whether you’re coming for a convention or a weekend, you’ve gotta come Downtown because there’s always something different to see and we really are always on. Free, live entertainment 365 days a year? That’s really important. And instead of thinking about what we could change about that, I feel like, let’s do more. Get the party going earlier. My job is to enhance what we have and add some new things along the way.