Show is UP: Springer-board To Vegas

Oct. 16 (a.k.a. Friessmas): Jerry Springer

You know him as the ringmaster of one of the trashiest, low-class and successful syndicated TV shows of our time, but Jerry Springer may have yet another act coming: Vegas headliner. Springer, the host of the NBC reality contest “America’s Got Talent,” gets his first taste of that Friday as the emcee for a concert at the MGM Grand featuring this season’s winner and runners-up. Also, Springer defends the virtue – yes, virtue – of his talk show.

Plus: Taking apart a nasty Vegas-bashing comment, Wynn's new eateries, hi and bye to Point Break Live, some GOOD economic news and a gay hotel-casino.

Links

Buy tickets to see AGT finalists at MGM Grand here
America’s Got Talent site here
Jerry Springer’s site is here
More on the M blimp can be found here
Steve’s column about the gay casino is here
The good news about the Vegas economy can be found here
Read Steve’s USAT piece on Tony Curtis here
Info about Bette Midler’s appearance for Obama at Krave is here
Steve’s NYT piece about the conclusion of the eco-friendly road race is here
Wynn’s restaurant lineup can be found here
An obit for Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal from the R-J’s Benjamin Spillman is here
A Las Vegas Sun report on why Point Break Live opened and closed quickly is here
Steve’s NYT piece on the outcome of the Plaza v Plaza case is here

This Week's LVW Col: Jerry-Rigged Vegas

Merry Friessmas, everyone! Here's this week's column, which is based to some extent on the interview that is on this week's episode of "The Strip." Enjoy!

Jerry-rigged Vegas

A Springer residency here could be a huge boost

By STEVE FRIESS

It’s not being billed as such, but there’s a concert this weekend that could very well redefine Vegas entertainment.

Okay, that’s overstating it a smidge. But the big show on Friday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena featuring newly crowned America’s Got Talent winner Neal Boyd and five of the show’s also-rans has the potential to spawn not one but two show-biz innovations that could finally move the Strip past its predictable diet of magicians, Cirque, past-their-prime vocalists and Broadway.

First, and most obviously, the success of the MGM event could reinvigorate the moribund variety-show genre in a sensational way. Thus far, America’s Got Talent has not gone the American Idol and Dancing With the Stars route with national tours featuring its top talents, and that may very well be because the correct approach to bounce off the NBC talent show’s phenomenal ratings would be to get a Vegas showroom and stage an AGT-branded show of rotating favorite acts.

This isn’t mere speculation; no less than AGT emcee Jerry Springer is working on it.

“I would love to do that, I have started some talks with them to do that,” said the 64-year-old trash-TV talk-show host, who will be here to emcee the MGM gig. “We have enough acts now in our stable that you wouldn’t have to do the same acts every night; you could work out schedules. Doing America’s Got Talent in Vegas is a natural because that is the place of variety.”

Read the rest HERE

The Strip is LIVE tonight with JERRY SPRINGER

We're back on our normal schedule tonight, 7-8 p.m. PT at LVRocks.Com, for our live show with "America's Got Talent" host Jerry Springer chatting about the show's potential influence on Las Vegas, how his own public image has changed over the years and why he's unrepentant about the trash-TV show that made him a star. Springer emcees an "America's Got Talent" finalists concert at the MGM Grand on Friday.

Plus, hear the WHOLE nasty comment about Las Vegas from the organizer of a eco-friendly Berkeley-to-Vegas road race that concluded here yesterday. Part of the quote is in my New York Times piece today, which can be found here.

As I said, join us live at LVRocks.Com for the chat and live show or pick up the podcast in the next day or so!