By STEVE FRIESS
There are so many great thinkers in Vegas producing so many great ideas. More than in any place else I’ve lived or traveled, the ingenuity and experimentation never ceases. But every once or twice in a while, you see something that makes you go “WTF?” or, at least, “Enough already!” It’s been nearly two years since I’ve done this, so it’s time to take to task the folks behind the worst ideas gripping our fair city.
1. Hetero-homosexuality for fun
Years ago, when I came out to a particularly straight male friend of mine, his first reaction was to ask whether I knew any lesbians who might want to get it on with him. And certainly, to an awful lot of hetero guys, that’s what lesbianism is good for, their own peculiar entertainment. So I shouldn’t have been surprised—and yet somehow I was—when about six months ago a certain breed of Vegas nightclub promotions started proliferating: the girl-on-girl kissing contests.
You can almost hear Beavis and Butt-Head in the meeting when they came up with this idea. “We’ll get some hot babes together, huh-huh, and get ’em to go all lesbolicious on each other, and then we’ll pick the best one, huh-huh, and give ’em a prize. It’ll be, like, awesome, huh-huh!”
Nice. Vegas clubs are now in the business of baiting their prey with live gay-for-pay action.Read the rest at LasVegasWeekly.Com.
4 comments:
If Steve Wynn really thought his hotels would be exclusively for the hoi polloi he should have capped them out at 800 or so rooms. He built ultra-lux hotels for the ultra-discriminating crowd but on a massive scale. See the problem?
How many well-off people are there that they can fill all the "upscale" resorts at full or close-to-full price? Upscale people are becoming an endangered species, and certainly less willing to part with disposable incomes (the most frugal people I've met are well-off, probably how some of them became well-off). Also, many upper demographic people would not be caught dead in Las Vegas. Why would people who rent chateaus in the Loire Valley or villas in Tuscany be a natural fit in Vegas? Many of the "money" people hanging at the clubs in Vegas are riff-raff who made their cash in entertainment or sports. Not sure why Wynn looks down on the bargain customers when his upscale customers often resemble the Beverly Hillbillies. Besides, no one is twisting his arm to offer $500 rooms for $150. He can have lower occupancy at higher prices and see how that pencils out.
There was a very interesting NYT piece about the Four Seasons recently in which the chain is infuriating its franchisees by not allowing them to lower rates. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/business/global/28four.html
It may foolish right now when everyone's in a panic, but the market will recover and the economy will recover. But the folks whose first impressions of Encore were that of being overrun by the people who used to stay at the TI will never recover. This is a business and social analysis, not a moral one. Sometimes you have to accept short-term financial losses to protect the viability of the long-term operation and reputation.
I agree with two out three of your posts. Wynn didn't really have choice, did he? He could run empty, see the cash dry up, and have to fire people. Wynn has a lot of mouths to feed. Yes he is going to some brand damage there is no doubt. Time and good experiences will, hopefully, heal it.
The glass building are nice to a point. That point has probably been exceeded.
Couldn't agree more with you about the kissing/sex stuff. It is what it is, but it's not good for anyone involved except those selling tickets.
SG
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