Cast members of “Thunder from Down Under” from a 2016 Las Vegas Magazine photo shoot.
Tuesday, June 16, 2020 | 2 a.m.
When SPI Entertainment and MGM Resorts teamed up to completely renovate the showroom home of the long-running and successful “Thunder From Down Under” male revue at Excalibur, one of the additions to the venue was to wire it so cameras could be added for possible recording and livestreaming shows.
The sexy Australian production has been running on the Strip for almost 20 years and is still ready to try new things. It’ll do just that this weekend with its first-ever virtual livestream performance at 7 p.m. June 20.
Since the Thunderland Showroom at Excalibur remains closed along with other live entertainment casino venues, the guys will perform from the Space, the multipurpose, charity driven theater and events center just west of the Strip.
“We’ve been wanting to do livestream ever since we opened Thunderland and then all of a sudden, the room is closed and the guys can’t make any money,” said Adam Steck, CEO at SPI, producers of the show.
He said he originally looked at the new Notoriety theater space at Neonopolis in downtown Las Vegas, but the space just wasn’t ready for the kind of production Steck had in mind. The Space, operated by entertainer and host Mark Shunock and home of the charity show Mondays Dark, had already streamed a seven-hour-plus telethon in April to raise money for local performers in need.
“We love the Space and Mark has done an amazing job building that venue, and it was turnkey,” Steck said. “It’s very suitable for what we want to do. We launched [last week] and we’ve already had hundreds of sales. The buzz is amazing.”
The “Thunder” show is a pay-per-view production priced at $19.95 and tickets are available at thespacelv.com.
Steck said there will be loads of extras during the live performances including backstage footage, interviews with the cast and more. It won’t be the same style of show fans may have seen multiple times at Excalibur, but the cast and crew are fired up and ready to bring the heat into living rooms across the country and around the world.
“They are so excited. They can’t wait. It’s going to be fantastic,” Steck said. “This is a good test to see how it does and if there’s an appetite, we can do it once a week from the showroom [when it reopens].”
Tickets for “Thunder From Down Under” at Excalibur are currently on sale for July 1 and beyond but that show and others like it will be waiting on approval from the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
For the Space, the show is the first in a series of livestreams that go beyond the Mondays Dark events.
“This is the first big Strip show for us to lock down and it has a worldwide following,” said Shunock. “It’s a no-brainer to put something together to keep their fans happy and it’s nice for the Space to welcome the guys from ‘Thunder From Down Under.’”
“America’s Got Talent” finalist Daniel Emmet and Italian singer Giada Valenti will team for two shows on June 26, and former En Vogue member Maxine Jones and fellow R&B singer Tony Terry will perform June 27 with proceeds going to the MaxStarr Urban Arts Foundation.
Steck’s company is also the producer of Australian vocal group Human Nature’s show, which had been headlining at the Venetian until announcing it would not return to the Sands Showroom last week.
Steck reiterated his confidence that Human Nature will find a new home in Las Vegas when the time is right. “This lets us be very calculated. Now we have the luxury of time to find a new room,” he said.
