Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Locals competitions have helped Downtown’s El Cortez get creative

El Cortez

Jeff Speer

The El Cortez held both a suite design and commercial contest as part of its 70th anniversary in 2011.

Rarely do you want to hear the tired phrase, “it’s a win-win situation,” but if there is one scenario appropriate for dragging it out of the cliché bin, it would be the El Cortez’s 2011 70th anniversary competitions that highlighted and employed the skills of local creatives who competed to design six hotel suites and direct a commercial for the property.

As one of Las Vegas’ oldest casinos, fortuitously set in the heart of Downtown redevelopment, the El Cortez gets the attention for the competitions that fit into the small budget, and so do contest participants, particularly the designers who can now add “Las Vegas hotel suite” to their résumés. Each of the four finalists designed a suite using resources from the World Market Center. The winner, Tina Enard’s Urban Design Studios, designed an additional six suites.

Now, Polyvinyl Films, the winner of its Cinema Competition, is gearing up to create an El Cortez commercial, which will air next year. Polyvinyl’s Outcall (a short film with a clever little story) looks much like an El Cortez commercial and placed first in the competition.

Not a bad addition to the résumé. The same goes for the suite designers. Even those who didn’t take first can say they have designed a suite at the El Cortez. “There’s so much great talent here,” says Alex Epstein, executive vice president of the El Cortez. “We wanted to do something to engage the community and highlight Downtown Las Vegas.”

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