Beyond slots and showgirls: Visitors demand culture with their craps

LAS VEGAS - Once upon a time, slots and showgirls were enough to keep this neon city glowing. As the gambling craze spread to 48 states, though, casino owners have had to scramble to offer more culture, cuisine and clothes with their craps.

As the stakes go up, jackpots are getting bigger, the food fancier, the buildings bolder, the shopping malls ritzier and the shows more lavishly international.

Gone are the days when you could come here with 100 bucks and expect to enjoy shows, shops and slots. Now that's the tab for some of the top shows, and shopping has gone from The Gap to Gucci.

New hotels once focused on cash the casinos could cultivate. Now megaresorts blossoming on the Strip scramble for world-class retailers, and $4.95 buffets have taken a back seat to gourmet restaurants tended by famous chefs such as Wolfgang Puck.

To coax the big bucks from a record number of tourists (33 million expected this year) casino executives are sparing no expense, figuring they'll win the money back at the tables - casino or showroom.

Take Steve Wynn, chairman of Mirage Resorts, Inc., the man who launched the transformation of the Las Vegas Strip with the opening of his flagship property a decade ago.

In a recent interview, Wynn grinned as he recounted his conversation with top executives of Cirque du Soleil, the Montreal-based avante garde entertainment company.

Wynn was pitching ideas for a new show at his $1.6 billion Bellagio resort, still under construction at the time.

"You're crazy," said Cirque founding President Guy Laliberte, responding to Wynn's idea of an elaborate new water-themed spectacle. "You're going to test the envelope. You realize you're talking costs of maybe $50 million?"

"Will you do it?" Wynn responded.

"Yes," Laliberte said, hesitantly.

The final tab to stage and produce "O," Bellagio's stage extravaganza, topped out at $102 million, with 90 percent funded by Mirage.

It was a leap of faith Wynn had taken before.

In 1988, Wynn signed illusionists Siegfried and Roy to an unprecedented 5-year, $58 million contract at the Mirage.

Skeptics scoffed, questioning whether any Vegas act could justify that kind of money.

Now in their 10th year at the Mirage, with 2 1/2 years remaining on a second contract, the popular act is grossing $55 million a year, playing to 750,000 people annually.

And "O" is making waves at Bellagio, packing sellout crowds at $100 per ticket. The show is expected to gross $70 million annually.

"Mystere," a Cirque production at Mirage's Treasure Island hotel-casino, is grossing $45 million a year.

All three shows are running at 97 percent capacity, with "O" drawing 18,000 people per week, "Mystere" and Siegfried and Roy 15,000 each.

Down the Strip, at Mandalay Bay, the Broadway musical "Chicago" has been playing to capacity crowds since it opened in March at the resort's plush 1,800-seat state-of-the-art theater.

The show has been extended into next year, according to Glenn Schaeffer, president of Mandalay Resort Group.

Broadway star Tommy Tune headlines the $45 million spectacular "EFX" at the MGM Grand. Other leads in the show have been "Phantom of the Opera" star Michael Crawford and former teen idol David Cassidy, who moves to the Rio Suite Hotel with his new show in January.

A touring company of "CATS" plays the MGM in September.

Both Mandalay Bay and MGM Grand have built events centers. Luciano Pavarotti christened one, Barbra Streisand the other. And she'll be back to usher in 2000. Others featured in millennium celebrations include Bette Midler, Elton John, Tina Turner and Rod Stewart.

The Luxor resort will be the site when the Bolshoi Ballet kicks off a 25-city United States tour Sept. 3-5 with the production, "Bolshoi, The Classical Collection - From Russia With Love."

Bolshoi is not the only foreign import headed for the United States via Vegas.

In January, an English adaptation of the hit French musical "Notre Dame De Paris" is scheduled to open at the new Paris Las Vegas hotel-casino.

"I think it's going to be a sellout from day one, as it has been all over the world," Paris Las Vegas President Paul Pusateri said of the new musical.

"Music moves people," he said recently, walking along a drive in the shadow of the resort's 50-story replica of the Eiffel Tower. "It evokes powerful emotions."

Pusateri believes people coming to sample the city's new billion-dollar megaresorts want an entertainment experience to match.

"There's a different crowd coming to this town," Pusateri said.

Wynn agrees.

"Without an entertainment centerpiece, these hotels do not keep the promise," Wynn said. "You've gotta forget the slot machines. They don't mean anything anymore."

Translation: A decade ago, Nevada and New Jersey were the only gambling games in town. Today, 48 of 50 states have some form of legalized gambling and casinos are popping up in more and more of them. Las Vegas had to raise the bar, offer something different, and the movers and shakers saw world class entertainment as just the ticket.

"Gambling has not been the attraction for many years," Wynn said. "The Mirage was built for people who wanted to do more than just gamble. This city was built by entertainers. The fact is, Las Vegas is all about entertainment."

Schaeffer agrees.

"People come here today for the entertainment, for the restaurants, the shopping, not just for the gambling," Schaeffer said. "Las Vegas has become a more sophisticated entertainment destination. Today national and international acts will open a tour, for example, in Las Vegas."

Longtime Las Vegan Robert Deiro sees the current entertainment fare as "eye and ear candy - easy to watch and easy to listen to."

Deiro, during intermission at a Celine Dion benefit, reflected on the unique nature of Las Vegas entertainment.

"If Pavarotti was playing here nightly, nobody would come to watch him after three weeks," Deiro said. "Yet Siegfried and Roy sell out nightly."

In the spring of 2001, Mirage plans to launch a new Broadway-style musical, "Miss Spectacular," written by Jerry Herman just for the resort and staged by some of the top names in the entertainment industry.

"The New York Times drama critic will have to come here to review the show," Wynn said.

End ADV for Sept. 11-12

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