Are you ready to see this and its massive LED screen hovering over the Vegas Strip?The M Resort-Spa-Casino, which is young Anthony Marnell III's $1 billion joint venture with MGM Mirage about 9 miles south of the Strip on Las Vegas Boulevard, is unveiling next week the inaugural flight of its M-branded Lightship. (Marnell was discussed in my NYT piece on the young moguls of Vegas; his father is the city's uber-builder and original owner of the Rio.) I didn't really know what a lightship was, so I called up to ask and the PR folks graciously provided these images to share.
Basically, it's a massive blimp with a 70-by-30-foot LED screen on its side that will hover between 800 and 1,000 feet up. Here's what the screen looks like:
The manufacturer is Florida-based Lightships Group (not to be mistaken with the Light Group) and here's a shot of what one of these guys looks like in the air. Their site is here.
As I understand it, there are only two others out there with the LED screens on them; the company has been building blimps with internal illumination systems (they glow, thus they're "lightships") for many years and, in fact, the company website indicates that they even held a wedding over Vegas in the gondola of one a few years back. No word yet if such events will be offered by M.
M unleashes its lightship Sept. 3. It'll fly over the Strip advertising the hotel-casino for hours at a time, several times a week, as well as floating above feeder markets like Southern California from time to time. It's certainly an innovative marketing tactic. The resort is due to open in March, so at first it will advertise that they're hiring and also, one would think, work to gin up awareness of the brand.
Here's some of the factoids offered about the vessel:
M LIGHTSHIP DIMENSIONS
• Length – 178 feet
• Height – 55 feet
• Width – 45 feet
ENVELOPE
• Volume – 170,000 cubic feet
• Length – 175 feet
• Diameter – 45 feet
GONDOLA
• Length – 25 feet
• Width – 6 feet
• Cabin Length – 11 feet
• Cabin Height – 8 feet
BY THE NUMBERS
• 8 – The number of hours it takes to fill the M Lightship with helium
• 12 – The number of months it took to complete the M Lightship
• 18 – The number of crew members for the M Lightship
• 30-35 – The miles per hour that the M Lightship cruises above Las Vegas
• 525 – The number of tiles that make up the M Lightship’s lightsign
• 800-1,000 – The number of feet the M Lightship flies above Las Vegas
• 7,705 – The number of pounds the M Lightship weighs
• 23,000 – The number of square feet of Tedlar material that compose the Lightship’s envelope
• 170,000 – The number of cubic feet of helium that the M Lightship needs to be fully-inflated
• 235,000 – The number of LED lights that make up the M Lightship’s lightsign
I'm still trying to get an estimate on the cost, but it's got to be expensive. According to the Lightships website, these babies require a crew of 16 to fly. Or at least I think I'm reading that correctly.
Thoughts?
