Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Pay to play

Most days around 11 a.m. two anxious young men pace the sidewalk in front of the New Frontier handing out coupons to performances of "Illusions & Beyond."

The two barkers aren't your normal shills, hired to pull an audience into some midway attraction theyre the stars of the show.

Magician David Darkstone, 23, and juggler Will Roya, 24, are hustling for customers not only because they believe in their low-budget production and want people to see it, but if enough people dont fill the 240-seat showroom the young men could be out on the street literally.

Roya used his home as collateral, and Darkstone used all of his savings to raise the money to put their show together and to rent the showroom at the New Frontier for two afternoon performances six days each week.

The two newcomers to Las Vegas have what is known in the trade as a "four-wall deal."

Four-walling takes several forms in most cases the entertainer is responsible for all of the costs related to the show and the venue pays nothing, or almost nothing. In the most extreme cases, the entertainer also must rent the showroom.

Darkstone and Roya are examples of the extreme. They sublet space from Peter Vent, who holds a long-term lease on the New Frontier's showroom.

The two young men stand at the threshold of what they hope will be long careers in entertainment, and were willing to take a risk for their shot at stardom.

"We are satisfied with the agreement," Darkstone said. "But it is very scary."

Although they are under the gun to fill enough seats to pay the rent, overall the men said they like the arrangement.

"We have total creative control, and to me that is very imporant," Darkstone said. "When the hotel or corporation controls everything, they will do what they think is best for them, not necessarily the entertainer."

Roya said, "We are actually proving ourselves as entertainers and businesspeople."

And business has been good. By the end of their first month their show was in the black.

Goulet sings

But at the other end of the Strip, the only black that show business veteran Robert Goulet was seeing was a black cloud over his recent four-wall deal at the Venetian, which did not fare well.

The show featured Goulet singing, backed by an orchestra and co-star Paige O'Hara.

Goulet sublet the 750-seat Showroom at the Venetian from H & H of Nevada, which leases the room from the hotel. He said his rental fee was $15,000 per show, and that all of his expenses came to about $200,000 per week.

Unable to sustain the losses, on July 24 Goulet shut down the production in the middle of an eight-week run.

Goulet is smarting from the experience and vows not to enter into that type of arrangement again. But he sees nothing wrong with a modified four-wall.

"I did a two-wall in '82," he said. In a two-wall agreement, the venue takes some of the financial risks and shares in the profits.

"I was one of the first (in Vegas)" to have such an agreement, Goulet said. "They gave me a salary and put up the publicity for me. After the salary, we split the profits.

"But those days are gone. Now you pay all the costs. If you're a stand-up comic the cost is just you, but if you're a singer you need to have an orchestra, stagehands, ticket takers, ushers. There are a thousand things, and then you have to do all the promoting yourself.

"In the old days, when the hotel owners ran the rooms, they would take their gambles with you. Now it's all corporations, and the bottom line is profit. It is so much of an onus on the performer. I'm out there to perform, not to worry about the pennies."

For Wall

Longtime Las Vegas performers fondly remember the days when casinos used entertainment as a loss-leader and entertainers were paid a flat fee.

"I would like to pick up a paycheck every week, but times change. You go along with the change," Breck Wall said.

Wall has produced and starred in several incarnations of "Bottoms Up," a burlesque-type revue, since 1955. He opened the show in Dallas and brought it to Las Vegas in 1964, where it has played in showrooms from one end of the Strip to the other. It has been at the Sahara, Caesars Palace, Rivera, the defunct Hacienda and Sands, among others.

All of the shows were paid for by the venues, until Wall entered into a four-wall deal with the Riviera in 1994. But the 250-seat room was too small to make money, so last year "The Best of Bottoms Up" moved to an 850-seat room at the Flamingo Las Vegas, where it also has a four-wall.

Wall said four-walling started to become prevalent in Las Vegas about five years ago.

"With all the business the hotels do, they wanted to back away from entertainment ... and save lot of headaches," Wall said.

Mixed bag

While four-walling seems to dominate the entertainment landscape today, there are many other payment arrangements, including traditional salaries.

Station Casinos, for example, rarely has four-wall agreements in the showrooms at its properties.

"We have four-walled," spokeswoman Judy Alberti said, "and we have welcomed it if the circumstances are right. But we look at it on a case-by-case basis. About 95 percent of the shows are our own events."

Jackie Brett, director of marketing and entertainment for Sahara, describes the arrangements at her facility as a two-wall.

"The way I see entertainment, it is here to help the casino," she said. "We're not in business to rent space and not have a partnership (with productions).

"If you are only a renter, where is your relationship?"

Joel Fischman, former head of entertainment at Bally's and Mandalay Bay, said production shows are also very big, with venues building showrooms or converting existing space for specific acts.

The productions become associated with the hotel -- such as Danny Gans and Siegfried & Roy at Mirage, Blue Man Group at Luxor and "O" at Bellagio.

Besides production shows, there are about as many four-wall variations as there are venues.

"This town is pretty well divided," Fischman, now an independent show producer and consultant, said. "The MGM, New York-New York and Mirage on some weekends do modified four-wall deals.

"There's a modified four-wall at the Las Vegas Hilton, with the Righteous Brothers, Sheena Easton and others. The Rio has a modified four-wall with Penn and Teller."

But a large number of properties, including Orleans and Suncoast, still do headliner, short-term agreements.

While four-walling may be good in many cases, Fischman said the idea of a venue leasing a showroom to a person who then subleases it to other producers is not a good idea.

"The hotel loses control of the room when they rent it out," he said. "That's the major concern at the Venetian. The Venetian has no control over what is done in the showroom there, but the Venetian's name is still on the door."

Vent-ing

At least three venues in Las Vegas have implemented extreme four-walling, including the New Frontier, Plaza and Venetian.

Peter Vent leases the showroom at the New Frontier and subleases it to three production companies, including the one owned by Darkstone and Roya.

A total of five shows are on-going at the New Frontier's showroom, which opened in November.

"It's a win-win-win situation for the hotel, the producers, the casino and my company," Vent said.

Vent said four-walling has increased the number of shows in Las Vegas. Until the idea caught hold, some hotels were closing down their showroomss.

Golden Nugget had gotten out of the entertainment business until comedian David Brenner went into a four-wall arrangement there last year. He was following in the footsteps of Rita Rudner, who was four-walling at MGM Grand and recently moved to New York-New York.

"The Frontier showroom is an opportunity for people to take their shows and hone them," he said. "We are thrilled if they can take the shows and go to another level."

Vent says he doesn't charge rental fees so large that productions have to struggle to pay the rates.

"I think the Goulet situation is very unfortunate," Vent said. "It would give credence to those adamantly against four-walling."

Vent has final say in the shows, but rarely exercises it.

"My philosophy is if you invest your money and you're spending it, I'm not going to go down there and tell you what to do," he said.

"When four-walls work, they work well. But when they don't they're a disaster," producer Dick Feeney said. "(Casinos) hold all the cards and they can squeeze you."

Feeney four-walls "Viva Las Vegas" at the Stratosphere.

"The best thing you can have is stable management that realizes you need to make money and also realizes the value of the bodies you bring in," Feeney said.

Saxe appeal

"Melinda, First Lady of Magic" was one of the first productions to four-wall, in an agreement with Bourbon Street 15 years ago.

David Saxe, Melinda's brother and the producer of her show, said the idea worked so well it was continued at other venues.

"Four-walling has taken over," Saxe said. "There is no risk to the hotel and there is a lot more stress on the producer."

Melinda is at the Venetian, where she shared the rooms with Goulet and impressionist Andre-Philippe Gagnon, who also recently left the Showroom.

Saxe says he isn't worried about the future of "Melinda." Most of the shows host near-capacity crowds.

Saxe is taking four-walling a step further. He has entered into an agreement with the Aladdin to build a showroom on the property and then to lease it back from the venue for 30 years. He says he could sublease to others, but most of the shows will be his own productions.

Whistling Dixie

Magician Dixie Dooley four-walls the show "Houdini Lives Again" at the Plaza.

"Every deal is different, every contract is different," Dooley said.

When Dooley arrived in Las Vegas 20 years ago, four-walling was rare.

Dooley has produced shows at the Las Vegas Hilton, Maxim and numerous other venues. One of the productions was "Heat Wave," a topless revue that had a short run in the late-'80s and early-'90s.

He said the show was booked into the Las Vegas Hilton, but Hilton executives decided a topless show didn't suit the property's image and allowed the show to die via a lack of advertising.

"There was no advertising, nothing," Dooley said. "They can help you die as well as survive."

Meanwhile Randy Sears, vice president of marketing for the Flamingo Las Vegas, says the hotel is very interested in the entertainment that goes on there, even though most shows are modified four-walls.

The last salaried shows at the Flamingo Las Vegas were "Forever Plaid," which closed in February, and the "Great Radio City Spectacular," which met its demise in July 2000.

"The hotel does take a risk," Sears said. "I can't speak to the other hotels, but in our case, we have the reputation of the hotel on the line. We participate in advertising and billboards. We lend our name to the event.

"The other side of it is, our four-wall was set up at a very reasonable rent. What the Flamingo is looking to do is take advantage of the bodies coming in."

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