Nude dancers, politicians to be ejected from LVCVA signs

Advertisements for sex shops and politicians are out, and state-of-the-art technology is in when it comes to electronic signs at the Las Vegas Convention Center and Cashman Center.

Under terms of a contract approved Tuesday by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority Board, the convention center will get four new signs complete with high-tech video screens, and Cashman will get a new scoreboard and video replay screen.

The contract also gives the LVCVA unconditional rights to reject any advertisement for any reason.

"We probably don't want to be advertising Little Darlin's up on the bulletin board," said board member and Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones, referring to a local strip club.

The new convention center signs will replace the existing sign on Paradise Road that is the center of controversy because its operator, Animated Electronics, runs adult-oriented ads for nude dancing clubs. LVCVA President Manny Cortez said the Authority has also received complaints when political ads were run on the sign.

"It's in response to some complaints we've had about the nature of the material," Cortez said.

Animated Electronics has since been bought by Electronic Sign Communication Network Inc. With four years remaining on the Animated Electronics contract, ESCN asked the LVCVA to renegotiate the terms of the agreement to allow it to build new signs.

Under the new contract, ESCN will build and operate all five signs at its own expense, sharing a percentage of its advertising revenue with the LVCVA. The new, video-quality signs will command much higher advertising rates than the existing sign, officials said.

For instance, with the new signs in place by October, ESCN will likely gross $750,000 during the November Comdex trade show. With the current, 10-year old sign, the company would only generate $100,000 in ad revenues, company officials said.

The LVCVA will see its share of sign-based ad revenues increase by $400,000 a year, said Tom Smith, the LVCVA's vice president of facilities.

Because it was renegotiating the sign contracts, the LVCVA took the opportunity to insert a clause giving it blanket authority to reject any advertising "that may not reflect well on the LVCVA or the community," according to a staff report.

"We want to be able to reject inappropriate advertising," Smith said.

The contract also includes a clause requiring ESCN to upgrade the signs' technology every year to ensure they do not become obsolete in another ten years. The contract extends ESCN's current contract by five years, and includes a five year renewal clause.

The new signs would be located near the current sign at the main Paradise Road entrance to the convention center, at the southeast corner of Paradise and Desert Inn Roads, and at the northwest corner of Desert Inn Road and Swensen Street. There will be an interior sign in the new walkway crossing Paradise Road at Convention Center Drive.

ESCN will present a plan for a new scoreboard and video replay screen at Cashman Center within 30 days.

The new contract passed the board by a split vote, 7-4. The nay votes were cast by board members -- including Jones and Chairwoman Lorraine Hunt -- concerned that the contract was not put out to bid. Luke Puschnig, the Authority's legal counsel, argued that it would be impracticable to put signs designed by ESCN out to bid by other companies.

If the Board had decided to put the signs out to bid, it would have had to wait for ESCN's four-year contract to expire, said Cortez.

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