Larry Ruvo: Visionary Roberto Medina reminds of Sarno, Kerkorian, Wynn and Adelson

By John Katsilometes

Monday, May 4, 2015 | 11:49 p.m.

The kindred spirituality of the moment was difficult not to notice: Larry Ruvo, one of the great philanthropic and business figures ever in Las Vegas, throwing his arm around the shoulders of Rock in Rio founder Roberto Medina.

It’s a heck of a partnership. Though from separate continents and dissimilar cultures, Ruvo and Medina nonetheless share a few pertinent qualities. Boundless vision tops the list.

So impressed by Medina is that Ruvo doubled down on “very” when talking of his new friend on the Strip.

“Roberto Medina is one of those visionaries who comes to Las Vegas very, very infrequently,” Ruvo said after Medina presented Keep Memory Alive, the charity arm of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, with a $50,000 check at the Rock in Rio USA VIP fortress at MGM Festival Grounds. “I am talking about the Jay Sarno, Kirk Kerkorian, the Steve Wynn, Sheldon Adelson — that’s Roberto Medina.”

Ruvo focused his vision on that of Medina.

“He’s a visionary, and he wants to leave his mark in a community, not only for great entertainment, but he wants to help philanthropically,” said Ruvo, whose own philanthropic passion has led to the development of the Cleveland Clinic at Symphony Park, one of the most advanced medical facilities in the world. “We’re very fortunate to have him here. We’ve developed a wonderful friendship, and he’s helping Keep Memory Alive immensely.”

Medina’s brainchild, Rock in Rio USA, opens Friday and Saturday at Festival Grounds and continues May 15-16. Up first this weekend, the rock shows of the festival, are Metallica, No Doubt, Mana, Linkin Park, Foster the People, Gary Clark Jr. and Bleachers. Set for the pop weekend May 15-16 are Taylor Swift, Bruno Mars, Sam Smith, John Legend, Ed Sheeran, Jessie J and Big Sean.

Electronic acts also will be dropped into the event, which features more than 100 acts on five stages. A performance by artists from Cirque du Soleil, a partner with MGM Resorts in the Festival Grounds project, opens the festival Friday afternoon.

Also spread across the 50 acres are such amusements as a Ferris wheel, zip line and pre-fab villages representing the United States, United Kingdom and Brazil. It is a major, and largely temporary, effort on what was heretofore-unused territory on the southwest corner of Sahara Avenue and the Strip.

Medina has long sought a U.S. outpost for his enormously successful festivals that have played in Rio, and later Lisbon and Madrid, over the past 30 years. He took a look at the Strip and that open plot of land and said, “This is the place,” and is committed to additional festivals in 2017 and 2019.

Organizers have said they are hoping for crowds of as many as 80,000 per day during the event, though even half that number would be a solid turnout for this first-of-its-kind event on the Strip. Published reports indicate that a little more than 102,000 weekend passes have been sold, splitting about evenly over the two weekends. VIP passes for this Saturday and May 16 have sold out.

As for that $50K donation to Keep Memory Alive, the informal, yet somewhat ceremonial, gesture took place on the afternoon of April 24, about an hour after a media tour of Festival Grounds. With no fanfare and little notice, Rock in Rio reps showed up with an oversized check in that amount. And this was before Medina even had a chance to tour the facility, which he did a few days later.

“Larry has read some articles about my story, about the festival, and he thinks exactly how I think,” Medina said shortly after his check presentation. “It’s incredible, how we think the same. We are trying to make a big partnership with Keep Memory Alive. We don’t have much time this year, but next time, it will be a very big thing. This is just the start of the relationship.”

Ruvo and Medina also share an affection for Frank Sinatra, who was a regular diner at the Ruvo family’s Venetian Italian restaurant in Las Vegas. There is an acute sense of the Chairman of the Board in this event. If not for Sinatra’s early relationship with Medina, Rock in Rio would never have been launched.

In a story that has become part of festival lore, in the mid-1970s, Medina, at the time a corporate advertising executive, persuaded Sinatra to appear in TV commercials for Seagram, which then was the largest distiller of alcoholic beverages in the world. By 1980, Medina had moved into the world of mass-gathering entertainment events and lured Sinatra to perform in Brazil for the first time.

The concert was not only the largest ever for Sinatra, but the 180,000 who turned out set a record for music shows of any type. As expected, Sinatra and Medina forged a friendship, and in 1985 Medina asked the legendary singer to help promote a major outdoor festival he’d planned in Rio.

Sinatra agreed to attend a press summit in New York, which drew 70 media representatives from around the world. The following day, the entertainment culture was abuzz about Rock in Rio and this Brazilian entrepreneur who, just days earlier, was largely an unknown figure in contemporary music. Queen, Rod Stewart, AC/DC, James Taylor and The Scorpions were booked to the event within a day of that news conference.

“Larry and I both love Frank Sinatra, and his 100th birthday is this year, and you have all of these connections because of him,” Medina said. “This is a very incredible story.”

Ruvo came away impressed at this relationship, and, as Medina said, this is just the beginning.

“This guy is special, he’s a nice man, and he’s smart as a whip,” Ruvo said. “He is a very, very cool guy.”

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