Experienced California motorists — always prepared to brake for hallucinations — have been known to encounter such rare sights as giant tortoises, wild burros, sun-bathing rattlesnakes and disoriented on their sprints to Nevada.
Blue Man Group, however, is a visageof a different color.
There they are, though, staring out from a billboard alongside Interstate Highway 15, beckoning tourists to the giant pyramid-shaped Luxor.As strange as it may seem to outsiders, Blue Man Group — branches of which already exist in Manhattan, Chicago and Boston — has become a big-money chip in the ever-expanding high-stakes game being played by increasingly daring resort owners here.
Stripped of context, Blue Man Group’s presence on the Strip would seem to be as improbable as a lounge act featuring E.T. and Phyllis Diller. But anything is now possible in a town where 10-story-tall marquees also promote Cirque du Soleil’s otherworldly “O” and “Mystere,” Tommy Tune tapping his way through “EFX,” the seemingly ageless Siegfried & Roy, an exhibit of artifacts from the Titanic and more world-class magicians than you can shake a wand at.
In fact, that’s pretty much the point.
For entertainment impresarios here, endeavoring to find a way to cut through marquee clutter suddenly has become the test.
Indeed, in the past couple of months alone, David Cassidy and Sheena Easton have opened in a brassy, retro musical production, “David Cassidy at the Copa,” at the Rio; the Paris Las Vegas’ high-energy “Notre Dame de Paris” has joined the slate of eye-popping theatrical spectaculars; multifaceted impressionists Danny Gans and Andre-Philippe Gagnon have moved into expensive new rooms at the Mirage and Venetian; versatile singer Clint Holmes has become a sensation at Harrah’s; the delightful lounge show, “The Rat Back Is Back,” has settled into the Sahara; blue, late-night comedy has returned to the 50-year-old Desert Inn, in the form of “Diane Ford’s Midnight Martini Madness”; Gladys Knight has joined the cast of “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” at Caesars Palace; and, yes, Wayne Newton has gotten his own spanking-new showroom at the Stardust.
In the next few weeks, the terrific illusionist Steve Wyrick will complete his move from Downtown to the Sahara (where an exciting new roller coaster also is to be launched); “Grease” will begin a month-long run at the MGM Grand; touring companies of “Stomp” and “Tap Dogs” will arrive for short stays; and “Footloose” gets a new theater of its own at the Rio. Also on the docket at the Rio is an offshoot of the wild Argentine revue “De La Guarda” — a big hit in New York and London — while a new Jerry Herman musical could debut at the Bellagio sometime next year.
If that isn’t enough to choose from, Wolfgang Puck has added Trattorio del Lupo and Postrio to his already impressive lineup of Las Vegas restaurants; Lutece has finally opened in the Venetian; a NASCAR Cafe now anchors the Sahara; and, in August, the Brennan family is bringing its New Orleans landmark, Commander’s Palace, to the rebuilt Aladdin. Restaurants as theater is an entertainment concept widely embraced at the new cathedral-like hotels.
Las Vegas also enjoys the dubious distinction of being one of the disco capitals of the world, with the opening of the Venetian’s luxurious C2K nightclub (it has a TV studio, giant HDTV screen, skyboxes and other private rooms). It joins an already impressive lineup of fledgling clubs, including Baby’s, at the Hard Rock; the Nightclub, at the Las Vegas Hilton; Ra, at the Luxor; rumjungle, at Mandalay Bay; and the MGM’s Studio 54. Each club has a personality of its own, and they all attract their share of local scenesters.
With all that going on, who’s got time to gamble?
Plenty of folks, actually, as gaming revenues are again on an upward swing. But, more than half of all visitors to Las Vegas now come to the city primarily to do things other than put their kids’ education on the pass line…hence, the clutter.
Between the baggage-claim area at McCarron Field and mid-Strip, less than 2 miles away, visitors are bombarded with as many as 200 prominent advertising images, not counting all the skyscraper marquees. Nonetheless, word-of-mouth is the killer app when it comes to selling a show.
No better example of this is the extremely gifted impressionist Gans, who, in just five years, has moved from the Stratosphere Tower to the Rio and on to the Mirage, where his signage is nearly as monumental as that for Siegfried & Roy. The theory here goes that S&R may soon retire, and there’s no better replacement to be found than Gans — an inventive comic and fine singer who represents a quantum leap over such traditional impressionists as Rich Little, and whose much-less-expensive show is always SRO.
Besides his made-to-order brand name, Cassidy — who took over for Michael Crawford in “EFX” — provides his late-Boomer audiences with an opportunity to hear the still very sound pipes of Easton and a swinging band blast out hits from several eras of pop music (this, in a town where, a decade ago, musicians walked picket lines in a futile effort to keep their jobs). The book to the show isn’t quite there yet, but Cassidy loyalists clearly value his energy and enthusiasm, and repeat customers make up a reliable share of the crowd.
In picking a show for the Paris, producers looked no further than the original City of Light’s most famous church, which recently also served as the setting for an animated Disney feature. For “Notre Dame de Paris,” they have rounded up a superb — and remarkably diverse — group of singers, dancers and acrobats, and given them a wide new stage to re-enact the classic romance for family audiences.
The truth is, of course, unlike the booming dining scene — where famous chefs and elite restaurant names become a magnet for gourmands — Las Vegas needs to maintain an exclusivity for such high-end attractions as “O,” “Mystere,” Lance Burton, “EFX” and Gans. Why invest anywhere from $20 to $100 million in a production when the same thing might someday end up in summer stock in Door County?
No, at a time when any gambler is within an hour’s drive of a slot machine or lottery agent, this city’s only-in-Vegas entertainment philosophy has proven to be both extremely lucrative and a life saver. Even at north of $100 per ticket, “O” instantly was able to join “Siegfried & Roy,” “Mystere” and Gans as continually sold-out attractions, and help stimulate even more tourism and convention business.
People who never dreamed of taking a vacation in Sin City now, sometimes grudgingly, must include it in their plans — if only to catch those shows or dine among fabulous art treasures in Steve Wynn’s wondrous Picasso and Renoir restaurants.
Speaking of which, no one knows quite what to expect when MGM completes its purchase of Wynn’s Mirage Resorts Inc. It would, however, be foolhardy to dial down the excitement created at his hotels by such visionary commercial experiments as Cirque du Soleil, S&R and Gans.
It also would be nice if Wynn’s dream of having important Broadway writers create new 90-minute musicals for Strip audiences is realized. After all, when the Mirage properties succeed, competing resorts are forced to follow suit. Hence, Blue Man Group at the Luxor.
In 10 short years, Las Vegas — with a resident population of 1 million-plus and 33 million tourists each year — has evolved from being an endangered desert outpost to becoming one of the most exciting cities in the world (it still has a ways to go to beat New York).
Concert promoters no longer bypass Las Vegas on the their way to Los Angeles (Bruce Springsteen makes his first visit this summer, while the Three Tenors and Bob Dylan recently made the scene). And, even a full-length version of “Chicago” was able to prove doubters wrong for a year at Mandalay Bay.
Surely, if such out-there attractions as Blue Man Group and “O” can make it here, they have a fighting chance of making it anywhere. Now, if Disney would only decide to loosen up a little and approve a production of “The Lion King” for the Strip, the transformation would be complete. And Bugsy Siegel will never stop spinning in his grave.
