What's in Las Vegas' Future?

above: Las Vegas..  I took this photo of the outside of the "New York New York" Casino Hotel.  Note the roller coaster.  And the Statue of Liberty.  Inside the building was a replica of a New York borough, with deli shops and food carts.

Hi there

As you know, I've been to Las Vegas quite a few times.  

Las Vegas changes to meet what it considers that the visitor to the city wants to see. It changes its spots a lot.

The days of Frank Sinatra, his Rat Pack, and visiting glamorous celebrities - Lana Turner, Betty Grable, Bogart and Bacall, etc - was over years ago.  Heavens, even the naughty hotel-owning gangsters stepped away from Vegas.

To stay current the hotels discovered, one after the other like lemmings, that a change of tack would bring in the punters.  How about theme-ing our hotels after countries, they collectively thought - 

Luxor, Rio, Paris, New York-New York, Riviera, Sahara, Tropicana sprung up.   Caesars Palace had gone Roman,  Why go to real life cities around the world when, inside a Vegas hotel , a visitor could dine at a side-walk Parisian cafe, complete with twinkling stars in the fake sky above, and a guy in a striped shirt playing an accordian?  

But, sigh, after a while, a change was needed once again.   And so, Vegas became family-oriented.  It was roller coasters and castles.  And evening pirate battles on the high seas of a casino garden.  And puppeteer shows, and ventriloquists, and circuses.  And real-life white tigers in one casino, lions in another, Flamingos in a third.  A promised Egyptian crypt adventure was a must for families, Walking past a shark in a large aquarium was soooo scary.  And, hopefully, as kiddy-winks slept, the parents would gamble.

Then, oh dear, Vegas changed again.  The difference crept up on visitors without many of us truly noticing.

Stage show musicals were in, family-orientated fun was no good if parents were required to walk their off-spring through the hotel casinos without stopping at the slot machines.  

So, for a glorious couple of years,  I all but bathed in stage musicals.  I loved "The Lion King", "Jersey Boys", "Saturday Night Fever", "Phantom" (of the Opera), and others.  Because two shows a night had to be fitted in, the hotel/casino showing "Phantom" was required to get permission from Andrew Lloyd Webber to cut "Phantom of the Opera" down to an hour and a half.  Lloyd Webber, apparently, loved this cut-down version.  And by the end of the second show, it still wasn't too late for some gambling.

"Priscilla Queen of the Desert" is one of my favourite  stage musicals.  I've seen it several times.  I was so excited that it was going to Vegas, and I booked in advance of my holiday.  Before I'd even landed in the United States, and when the show had only been going a few weeks, it got cancelled.  Those (and I'm quoting a three word rhyme from the movie here) "c**** in frocks" just did not appeal to the typical American visitor.

Across the next few years, stage musicals disappeared, bachelor and bachelorette parties were encouraged instead.  There were wild weekend parties and club nights, and music, and high-end strip shows like "Chippendales" and "Thunder from Down Under" for women patrons, and casino female strip shows for men.  During college (university) breaks, Vegas was saturated with young people looking for fun.  Of an evening, jandals, shorts, boob tubes were worn and yard glasses of booze allowed to be carried on the streets, and into shop and casinos.  What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, yeah?  I so missed seeing Vegas visitors in sparkles and glitter.

And nowadays....?  I hear that Vegas has gone sporty....  With a plethora of boxing matches, and the encouragement of sports conventions.   There's car races, and newly-built sport arenas that can handle rugby and rugby league.   Athletes of all sports are being begged to compete in the city.  Hotels are sporty-themed, with most buffets disappearing to make room for huge sports betting outlets,  bars, and pay-as-you-go foodhalls.

As my four readers know, I'm going to Vegas this year.  Darn-it, I'm not a sports fan.  Still, I guess I better pack a track suit.  Or two....