Most of the time, the brains behind the Strip and Las Vegas get it right, at least when it comes to investing private money. The really great, viable big ideas get built in record time—hello, CityCenter and Palazzo—and the dumb ones—Las Ramblas and Ivana’s Tower spring instantly to mind—fade away before anyone is seriously hurt.
And then there are the decisions and actions that baffle. Lately, there have been quite a few. Let’s take them out to the woodshed, shall we?
1. Another Hard Rock Café. Of all the bizarre ways to spend a few tens of millions of dollars, how about we build a 41,000-square-foot, 700-seat tribute to an entity that hasn’t been hot since my Bar Mitzvah? No, really, they’re serious. Hard Rock International, the Orlando-based defender of the stretched-thin brand, plans to open such a thing by summer 2009 just north of GameWorks and the MGM Grand. I should clarify that the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas certainly remains important in the Vegas zeitgeist, but the restaurant? Can’t we get our offensively overpriced burgers and cold fries amid increasingly obscure memorabilia at any number of other places these days? Ah, defenders will say, the new Strip edition of the Hard Rock—already referred to as its future flagship!—won’t just be a restaurant, it’ll have a “live concert venue.” You know, because, well, there aren’t enough of those on the Strip, are there? Which brings us to ...
2. The Harrah’s-AEG arena. Hey! I’ve got a neat thought! You know Flamingo Road east of the Strip where traffic sits idle waiting for Kingdom Come at pretty much all hours of the day? I think we ought to go and build a 20,000-seat sports and concert arena right there behind Bally’s! Since Harrah’s and Anschutz Entertainment Group announced a $500 million plan for just that, complete with expectations that a sports franchise of some sort can be kidnapped and forced to play there, there has been virtually nothing in the local press about the traffic disaster such a concept would yield. When it does come up, proponents insist that lots of attendees to the stadium will be walking from nearby hotels and taking the Las Vegas Monofail. Which is a lie. A Las Vegas sports team will draw more local attendees than anything else that happens on or near the Strip, and that means kazillions of cars. All I can say is that any Clark County commissioner who approves this development is proving once and for all that they don’t give a rat’s ass about proper civic planning. It’s just common sense, it’s ridiculous, and I can’t figure out why the casino companies themselves don’t want to avoid this insanity.
3. Mamma Mia! is closing next summer. That is, the most important exception to the Broadway-fails-in-Vegas rule is vacating its space at Mandalay Bay just as the story is being made into a surefire blockbuster of a major motion picture starring Meryl Streep. Huh? My sources tell me this was the decision of the creative team behind the ABBA-scored phenomenon, albeit largely made because they didn’t want to spend an eternity waiting for MGM Mirage to pull the plug in favor of yet another Cirque du Soleil production. Mamma Mia! makes solid profits in Vegas, and I personally love it. Hey! Here’s a thought: Maybe another property without a Cirque addiction might pick it up! You know, one where a certain Mel Brooks comedy is about to vanish!
4. Defacing iconic buildings for a few hundred thou. When it comes to Vegas resorts, the most important branding opportunity they have is that each has a distinct shape, color, size and look. Which is why it’s such a baffling move to drape an Absolut vodka banner over the side of the Luxor’s pyramid or cover up a third of the Rio’s rainbowed tower with a Jim Beam ad. It was already annoying enough when properties started wrapping buildings for their own events and shows, but at least the connection was obvious and the advertising was self-serving in a more appropriate manner.
Happily, sources within the Rio tell me they’ve now realized the folly and probably won’t be doing that sort of ad again. Amazing, really, that a casino company could opt to leave big money on the table in the interest of good taste. In fact, I’ll believe it when I don’t see it.
Read Steve Friess’ daily blog at TheStripPodcast.blogspot.com and catch his weekly celeb-interview podcast at TheStripPodcast.com. He can be reached at [email protected].