Evolution of Las Vegas: Key Properties

[Music] oh [Music] hello viewers and welcome to the latest episode of the Huddle I'm joined by a very familiar face and old old guest uh old friend uh Oliver L CE of denstone group and regular gaming America contributor Oliver thanks for joining us good morning Tim how are you very well thanks and how are you oh we're great great all is H hotting up nicely in Las Vegas this summer yeah uh I mean it's even warm here in London which is which is an absolute Rarity but uh yeah plenty plenty to discuss with with Vegas which which we will do today yeah you have no idea how hot it is it's a virtual oven so a pleasure to be inside talking to you rather than outside yeah with the airor on um well we we're running this uh this interview in accompaniment really with uh your latest article for gaming America magazine um talking about the five properties that really uh make made Las Vegas and and we know you're an expert in in the history of of the region and the and the space um maybe to start off with you know we've got the closures of the Tropicana and the Mirage um potentially well not potentially changing the landscape of Vegas if we to look for look ahead before we look back um how might that change things we're kind of looking at a helicopter view of of Vegas so there's there's two things first of all there's the historical position because both these properties are part of Rich tapestry and Legacy of the city um you know the the tropican are get one of the oldest properties on the Strip it also means there going to be you know 5,000 additional rooms coming to the market so that's that means that uh with the newer properties that have opened up there's a a chance to try and capture those customers and then we wait an anticipation for the new properties that going to rise in in the rubble from the rubble of these of the of the Mar in the tropicano whether they're coming in two years or or five years the city continues to to reinvent with new properties and new ideas and I think everybody who lives out here has their favorite property or or you know can point to various turning points in the city and what I wanted to try and do having had this discussion with so many people is offer my my Russ for what I think the properties were that changed Las Vegas and and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to sit down and and take this discussion and um and research it properly and and offer you know my five to your readers no absolutely it's it's our pleasure to include them uh you touched on the properties that might be coming uh in place of you know the Mirage and Tropicana in in the in the future that's something we touch on uh later on uh but when you talk about Vegas always changing um it it's it's crazy to think first of all that when we sat down at G2 that was already about eight nine months ago it's amazing how time flies but back then we touched on you know the the sporting Legacy that Vegas is now starting to build and how it's the entertainment capital of the world after kind of so many changes in its Evolution already yeah I I think when we sat down last last September October time the way I felt about this city was we were kind of at the end of one cycle and at about to start the beginning of the next cycle and there was something tangible about that in the air that we've gone through this postco period there been a bit of a cash grab by The Operators we've come people have come and we've we've offered lots of highend leisure experiences but we're moving to that next phase as conventions have returned as sport has come big time with the Super Bowl in Formula 1 and I'll talk about this maybe a little bit at the end the arrival of the sphere which has been not now that we've now that it's open and we've seen it operating for six seven months we can notice not just its attraction but also its disruptive effect on the wider Market as we say plenty to plenty to look ahead to but let's let's look back and and the your top five properties or your five properties that changed Vegas the first one you've gone with the Stardust and I wanted to do a little kind of word association having having read the article which our readers will will soon be able to access um the word that came came to mind for me when you or the phrase a couple did but we've gone with mass market for this one so Stardust Mass Market tell us all about it yeah so what's interesting is you know the Las Vegas in particular the strip had already been knocking about for over a decade when the Stardust arrived and and what I found interesting was with the Stardust it opened with and and I've written a little bit about the history and the evolution of it which itself could be a movie right the development uh and and how it came to be but when the star just opened in 58 it had over a thousand rooms albe in a motel style and if you put that into context and excuse me my numbers may be a little bit weary but um you know I think the Sands opened with 200 rooms and the desert in had 300 and the Riviera had about 290 odd so you're talking about a property opening over three times the size of what the market was and of course when the flamingo open famously didn't even have a hotel so you're you you you're you're now taking Las Vegas which was this small uh owner managed properties owner operated properties um and creating something for the mass Market where the people that ran the properties weren't necessarily creating it for people like them they were creating it for other people so you saw when the F when the the star just opened it wasn't just a desert Motif it get a little bit more atomic age a little bit more futuristic it opened with a a showroom rather than an Entertainer it had a drive-in movie theater it had an RV park it was a lot more mass Market middle class than what what the existing the then existing Las Vegas offer was and it encouraged people to come to Las Vegas who wouldn't necessarily have come there or thought it was beyond their price point over the over the time the duration that the uh Stardust existed and of course ownership changed but there was you know significant mob influence in the property you saw Innovations led by Frank rosenal for for decades the sports and it was the first sports book on the Strip not the first in Las Vegas but it was the first on the strip and what we see now is as the modern sports book comes from what rosenal um implemented in the Stardust and of course you know when I say it could be a movie that that period was famously movie in the film casinos so there's so many stories to do with the Stardust and its Evolution um and even when the mob were cleared and boy came in it still didn't pretend to be anything that it wasn't it became a very large very successful Mass Market middle class property and I think in many ways the expansion of Las Vegas in the 80s and the 90s the tone was set by the Stardust back in the 50s if you perhaps to give that maybe like an influence rating out of 10 or out of five stars or whatever system we want to use I guess because because it because of that mass Market opportunity you talk about um I mean how how influential was a stardust because will be ranked very highly on the list now yeah I mean it wasn't the defining property of Las Vegas but it certainly shifted what H how the business worked and it also meant for example that the casino could be bigger and lower or created that whole grind joint um Mass Market casino floor how was it seven 7 to8 in terms of influence interesting I I think we should do this for every property and we can have a nice little comparison but next up is is Caesar's Palace still around of course iconic I mean I'm a friends fan so that's the casino they went to when they went for the trip and friends um and the word that stood out to me from from from your section was escapism yeah so H I've written in the past about Caesar's Palace in terms of the way J Sno and Stan Malon who created and and conceived Caesar's Palace was a Fusion of all their different experiences from time spent in Italy to opening up motor homes Across America the use of architecture and design and lighting and visiting the font blue Miami it kind of all came together Stan Malon before he passed away said to me and I always remember this he said we captured lightning in a bottle with Caesar's Palace so how much of it was deliberate and how much of it was you know accidental due to to the intuition of Saro and and his personality as a gambler I'm going to think a lot of it was intuitive right and accidental so that doesn't uh negate from its importance but it completely redefined what a casino could be and what Las Vegas was in terms of design we're talking about the use of again trees lighting fountains driveways which are now ubiquitous and highend properties but were born out of Caesar's Palace the use of the casino as the central Hub where the energy is 247 born in Caesar's Palace the idea of theming a casino or a resort was there in Caesar's Palace and I mean to guess you had western themed properties but nothing is flamboyant as What was seen in Caesar's and also in terms of branding you know Caesar's Palace was the first branded property that appeal that appealed primarily for its brand rather than who the Entertainer was you know to be honest the Sands the desert and the Junes they were mainly interchangeable um and the rational to stay was who the headliner was moreover the idea of emotion and experience and escapism was front and center at Caesar's Palace and I don't want to um talk about Circus Circus because the two of them are kind of linked together both created by Sno and Malon if if if one looks at Caesar's Palace you can you have to kind of put a little bit alongside Circus Circus so for example Circus Circus opened with 700 slot machines two years after Caesar's Palace opened Caesar's had 200 slot machines Caesars had six bars in restaurants cus cus had 14 bars so the the the germination of what modern casinos were were as they are now started at Caesar's Palace and expanded and iterated um over the next 55 years and by the way you know if if you look at it all the other Legacy properties that exist in Las Vegas and probably anywhere only caes Palace is the one that has continued to remain relevance remain relevant today and again you know it's not something you can replicate it is a it is a brand and an experience that has resonance with customers you know of of every generation the point you made about kind of the the casino floor being the The Hub and the center of the property maybe a slight geographical digression but that just isn't influential in Vegas because obviously you've got maau and you know we were in Manila recently and um a lot of the casinos they you know reminded me just of a Vegas casino because you you have that that Central that Central Hub they all could have been none of them were none of the ones I was at were like a MGM casino but you could have could have easily mistaken it for MGM or or a Caesar because of that that concept that you mentioned of kind of casino right in the middle and it kind of leads you everywhere else in the property influence rating out of 10 10 10 okay yeah okay tic interesting yeah um for sure yeah so that'll take us to the Mirage which was your third one interesting to see how that ranks in comparison got I got to stay there luckily last year U you know people won't be staying there anymore but the word uh Innovation really for the Mirage yeah I mean Innovation iteration could remember Caesar's when open had 680 RS it wasn't to make a resort and what what happened with was it expanded to meet demand over the years um I have I have a quote I don't I don't know if I actually put it in the article but I have a quote from Alan Feldman who opened the Mirage with Steve wi long-term Mirage executive and he said um it is worth noting Steve wi gave Sno credit for establishing the template for Casino design a spectacular entry a sense of place throughout the property and with the casino serving as the main artery for everything else with restaurants and Retail ringing this space as as Felman said to me when one said if you could find an original Caesar's Palace ground plan and overlay The Mirage they'd be almost identical so what I said before with Sno having this raw intuition on Casino design and customer psychology when bought into it and again when I when I wrote my piece for you guys on Sarno a couple of months back um Heidi said to me when they would go out for dinner on a Friday night Steve wi who was a young Casino developer would often join them on Friday night and he and when in Sno would discuss Casino design for hours you know on a Friday night at the Country Club so you know there is clearly a lineage an iterative lineage between Caesar's Palace and wind's properties which are the Mirage bagio and and Treasure Island and all the other ones in the and the win of course um so what the what the Mirage did and I I've heard you know many Executives talking about that before is they took a step back and they had had Success Downtown and had success in Atlantic City and the availability of capital markets which were um more accessible than the certainly were in the times of Sno who couldn't raise money for his Grand deimo they said okay what works at Caesar's Palace what works at the international what works at the Flamingo so the the international the Hilton what works at Flingo what works what works in various places who are the customers how can we bring them together they did not have the confidence that a 3,000 room Mega Resort for wealthy folk was that whether the market was ready for that yet but they were proved with the bagio that there was however EV it is undoubted that the Mirage from development to opening and operations is the most carefully considered property that has ever opened there was no rle room there was no room for error in getting that property from the ground and opening and operating and you're right in terms of innovation they looked at everything what were the optimum distances for people would walk from the Elevator Shaft to the room in a way that the other properties of the time missed a couple of tricks for example the MGM Grand you know the distances to Walker were considerable um but certainly The Mirage was very carefully considered very architecturally tight and I think you have to thank you know Joel Bergman the late Joel Bergman for that and again we talk about it being a themed property it wasn't like Paris where it was a replica of of Paris or the Venetian where it was a replica of Venice it was about how you feel they taken that snal sense of escapism and try to replicate the idea of being on vacation it was the first property to be scented if you remember the original color palette of of the Mirage it was bright it was happy people smiled and the deliberate uh strategy or aim of those operating The Mirage was for you to have positive emotional connections with the property have memories of being the prop and if you have a positive memory and a positive experience you will be back and it was the first to take emotional loyalty deliberately as a strategy and again if you see the way that loyalty has dominated um the Las Vegas strategic thinking or gaming strategic thinking over the last 20 years you can almost point to the Mirage as the one that professionalized and revolutionalized casino operations of management to that extent so very influential but what's interesting is uh from what you're saying you can you can see the influence of for example Caesar's Palace which we just talked about on on the Mirage and uh but in terms of perhaps Target markets uh we're looking at a totally different kind of customer segment perhaps to what the Stardust would have been would have been looking at yeah yeah to an extent I mean the the if you look if you look at the customer Universe of each particular time right Las Vegas was built the the Golden Age of Las Vegas was built for the golden generation that was post second world war um markets and again even Caesar's Palace was still very much trying to attract the same customer that that the uh the Sands and the Junes and and you know the riv were trying to attract it it it wasn't particular trying to bring in new people what the Mirage did was it appealed to people who are winds age who are boomers eff you call them now but you know we call them you know postc World War International more cultured better traveled more aspirational uh Americans and Global and Global customers and to an extent that hadn't really been catered For in Las Vegas at that time and you saw you know as a consequence of the Mirage those 14 properties open in the next 10 years all predominantly catering for you know post second world war born Leisure and gaming customers M so out of 10 oh again this is another 10 okay it's it's yeah it's the load star for for Casino development and casino design um you know and for the professionalization again without the Mirage there would be no Marina Bay Sand there would be no modern maau there'd be no modern Las Vegas it's it is it transcends Casino development and it's it's a much bigger it's a much bigger a much more important property for you know Resort and hospitality industry full stop mhm no and it leaves with with some Legacy um next up you've gone for the Venetian and the word the word that stood out conventions so we're we're talking about quite a departure from perhaps what we've talked about so far yeah I mean you got to remember that Sheldon Adon who built the Venetian wasn't a gambling guy I he was a business guy you know he'd be and to understand the property you have to understand the man a little bit um you know Adison had had had set up and run he'd been in the travel industry and he he'd uh H run conventions he needed a convention center and he needed a a space to build a convention center and then build a hotel to in it so so he had already built the convention center attached to the Sans Hotel demolished the Sans hotel and then built um the the Venetian in its place and Anderson's thinking was if people were prepared to spend $250 a night for a room in New York or Orlando or Chicago why if I created an allsweet property with the nicest rooms the best restaurants adjacent to the convention center why wouldn't they spend $200 a night in Las Vegas and and that was completely to a to to a large extent contrarian to what was happening in Las Vegas at the time even the Mirage did not spend a lot of money in his rooms the rooms were small they didn't want customers to spend time in the rooms in many cases the rooms were were basic inless it were a high roller Suite they wanted to get people out of the rooms and into the casino andon was was much more pragmatic in terms of revenues you know he and he ran the he ran the hotel almost as if it were a shopping mall or a real estate deal where you sell off or lease multiple aspects of the operations famously opened without a buffet you know the hotel didn't operate the restaurants they were on they were on leased so he was much happier not the hospitality model that we had seen at the Mirage or traditionally in Las Vegas but changed the business model um and again I think most properties nowadays are using third party brands or least deals within certain elements of the business where it was almost unheard of prior to that again you know the the the theming piece you know um I don't think anybody particularly goes and stays in the the Venetian because they want to be in Venice but certainly Venice and Paris have emotional resident resonance as cities with customers they love them so we' taken on various elements of the strategy which we had uh which we had seen uh in the previous you know 10 15 years but the Venetian wasn't about gaming it wasn't about fantasy it was a really cold pragmatic business decision and it changed Las Vegas and Las Vegas customers if you look at the previous generation of resorts that had kind of opened in Las Vegas you had Treasure Island 9 in '93 you had treasure and luxa and MGM Grand all opening within six or eight weeks of each other and a lot of them were aimed towards families if you consider that Excalibur had opened before well Adon oh what Adon said was the business customers are as important or more important than these family customers that were seeking to attract and he was proved right and again if you take away highend Gamers even convention customers are the most important demographic of visitors the city yeah of course it still stands today right across from from The Mirage and um let alone standing today we do G G2 every year at the Venetian it's as you say um I think that it first I think you first wrote in gaming America I think it was during the pandemic that yeah that that point that if you take gaming out of Las Vegas um you know it could still survive but if you took conventions out uh you know it it it simply couldn't and it's just amazing to think given the the history and even popular culture with with with movies and and entertainment and shows that actually that is that is so vital to to Las Vegas now and on that basis um I mean where would you go with the with the influence rating as an eight in terms of you in terms of I would I would I would give Adon a greater influence influence rating than the property however I I think what won't want you to think about is today in Las Vegas we have 10 million square feet of convention and meeting space right we have 22,000 meetings in conventions we have more large conventions than any other city um in in America I think large conventions than every other city in America combined um and the new owners vich and Apollo are spending a billion over a billion dollars on renovating a property after buying it for six and a half billion so this will tell you this is a phenomenal property a great asset um and one that will dominate the market for years to come yeah absolutely um well said um the fifth number five the Cosmopolitan and uh I've gone for youth having read your your your your right up um interesting choice tell us all about it yeah so the cost po wasn't the first property for the the next generation of customers let let's make that clear um you've seen the Hard Rock open in 95 Off the Strip so a whole generation before um where young people and slightly older people bash together in this wild setting if you you you'll be far too young to know they F of rehab dayclub to the psyche of young American or young young people all over the world who watched enviously of what of the shenanigans going on in the pool or the palam's nightclub the pals Casino Resort opened by the Mals which was the first property to have big DJ clubs in it um and European St night life um so they were very much youth or young people orientated what the Cosmopolitan did was it said we have to create something different for different type of customer that is already here on the Strip now part of it was was due to the constraints of the building it was built on eight approximately 8 acre footprint roughly give or take you know uh a couple of points the same size as the lake at the bagio that it overlooks it went up rather than out it created an urban setting because the nature of food and beverage was constrainted they couldn't put it around the casino floor it had to go up and um and the team that programmed it had experienced at Caesar's Palace at when um they understood the idea of culture and loyalty and creating an offering for a particular type of customer and to have that emotional resonance so yes it was iterative to what was in the market and the psychology was was also iterative but the customer was new and what it meant was and why I think it changed Las Vegas it became a beacon of aspiration for the then under 40s even the under 30s this is the coolest hotel to stay in it is for a people like us if you go to the Mirage or the baju or the wi or the Venetian which effectively were the leading properties in town at that time you could very easily meet your parents in the Blobby in the morning you didn't meet your parents in the Cosmopolitan with the balconies which were a huge attraction to um which were because the property was originally developed as as apartment um the room sizes were were naturally bigger the amenities were were were different um and and it really struck a chord in terms of the design aesthetic and the programming particularly the programming and I think this is the other thing which which I've given a lot of thought to as well the the food and beverage that was in there was not just functional it wasn't just a revenue generator and boy it was a revenue generator with that customer it defined the property as something more urban um and I say Urban in the you know and like the restaurants on food and beverage could be seen in Chicago or London or new New York or DC you weren't pulling in you know um celebrity chefs from the the way they had it in h in in the MGM properties of the time no disrespect to the likes of the men as they're great restaurants but you had Jose Andreas they were much younger cooler chefs and offerings and Brands than you saw across the strip and again you know that was the catalyst oh something's just changing on my computer excuse me um that was the Catalyst for the next generation of customers to come to Las Vegas then if you look at what's happened over the course of the last 10 12 13 years since the 14 years since the cosmopolitan's opened Las Vegas customers have got progressively younger and moreover it's kind of sticking now so it used to that that generation who came 10 15 years ago are still coming but the generation uh you know the uh the Millennials who were coming very very young are still coming and we need to start looking at you know gen Z now even though people aren't necessarily gambling or of age to gamble or of age to play we need to start thinking because the development cycle you know for the Cosmopolitan was F was 20 years ago there yeah you you kind of jumped in with a point I I was I was going to make I was going to going to reference your your recent article generation next and and obviously with uh the the audiences and the and and the things that um properties have to do today to attract a younger customer for example the Mohan CEO uh Rino he recently said to to me use the phrase instagramable moments you know um I couldn't imagine a a casino CEO maybe five 10 years ago even even necessarily knowing perhaps what Instagram is never mind using it as part of the business strategy um but certainly given that drive today that's needed from casinos I suppose that really puts the Cosmopolitan high up and uh prompts me to give you the the uh influencer rating yeah well I I think it's again it's a seven or an eight right in terms because it will Define every other Casino that's going up around the country has a little bit of a Cosmopolitan in it in terms of that youthfulness but I will see one thing yeah again about this this this influencer thing I I think the best casino developers and I'm talking about through history with that Sno or when uh or whoever you know we're instagrammable thinking before Instagram right cool before cool not not cool I'm talking about visually if you can visually C so you know how many people have their photographs outside the front of Caesar's Palace in front of the driveway in the fountains how many people have photographs of the volcano the idea of creating a visual memory OB in a then a traditional photograph was something that was innate to developers and Visionaries at that time just the rest of the world is much more conscious of it now again take a walk around the wi I guarantee there are at least a hundred postcards right postcard photographs in the wind that you could take that are picture perfect that are framed with corridors and sight lines and lighting right that's not an accident the guys who developed to conceive these knew what they were doing so I I I think you know we we talk about instagramable moments Vegas has been doing this for 50 years fair enough um so let's maybe talk about who missed out uh you we mentioned the bagio and what I might do actually is encourage uh any Anyone who reads the article anyone who watches this video to maybe come up with the top five of their own because as you as you wrote in the piece it's uh you know it could could create a lot of a could create a lot of debate yeah like I said I W I had had dinner with a bunch of guys a couple of weeks ago we were having this conversation and people were a Gass that I didn't talk about the flamingo in there you know and I have my reasons for it because I I I don't think it was anyway for for what it with I think the flamingo will have had a long in before it became a a a property and its influences were from you know La in Paris rather than the lights of the the St was very much into what the competitive set was I think the bagio won which was certainly one of the most probably the most important property in terms of the financing of Las Vegas um and prove how how productive a casino could be in terms of Revenue that said a lot of it was and it's probably the most defining property in in Las Vegas today but I think too much of it is iterative from from The Mirage um and if one were to have to pick between the Mirage and the bagio the properties that changed Las Vegas I think my money would be on the Mirage yeah again with the win you know it is it is stunning um to look at and stunning to walk around but there is a lineage there is the clear line AG that runs between Caesar's Palace Sno Steve WIS Mirage Steve WIS bgio Steve wins win and what's a bit of a shame that in you know in a very short period we're taking out a block of that lineage so when I take tours and I talk to groups and we walk the floor of the Mirage and we point things out one would be able to point at the Hard Rock guitar and say that is where the Mirage used to be um and I never thought I would be seeing that absolutely um perhaps as as a final segment we can we can look ahead and I think the guitar might be quite Central to that conversation but I know you mentioned the sphere earlier and I know it's had a uh literally change the skyline of Las Vegas um I I know it opened to some some cost and expenses uh but I suppose property of that nature uh is perhaps inevitable um if we were to be having this conversation in a few years do you think the sphere um you know is is right up there in terms of not not a casino but a but a property that has has really changed Vegas 100% uh 100% so I I I just spent the last couple of I was away for the last month and a half or so and I was traveling across the world really and people kept say to me you from Las Vegas what's the sphere like this has become one of the most important or certainly the most attractive um buildings structures in the world and it's only in Vegas I mean it is to this generation what the Mirage was in terms of spectacle in terms of Attraction there's a couple of things it is it is undoubtably a spectacular building h you I'm a cynical old Scotsman but when I go by or drive by you know every time I just think it's absolutely amazing um to see it U and if you look at now the artist programming is becoming uh um is building out with the likes of the Eagles and sure more people will be announced in the next 18 months or so it's giving more and more customers the opportunity to experience uh a venue like no other however much as like the mega Resort when the mega Resort period opened in the 1990s it led to increased obsolesence to the older properties and I think one of the things that one we are seeing in Las Vegas is the sphere is kind of sucking the entertainment dollars away from other venues so you know unless you have a headliner an Adele or a Gaga or a Bruno Mars the smaller entertainment offering Staples you know The Magicians and you know the so detials to a large extent was Production shows customers can't afford to spend $ x00 on tickets to a production show and why you know $100 per show at the sphere and currently the sphere or the other Headliners are winning so you're seeing the consequences um of the sphere changing Las Vegas and it's making that whole entertainment piece much more challenging both from a a booking point of view and a programming point of view MH and another one in a few years to sort of throw my two cents in I'm surprised by this myself but if you ask me my my favorite property and I think I talked to you about this when we were at this property but but actually cir is my favorite at the moment I think uh it's had a good impact on on downtown and um you know uh it's won Global gaming Awards Galore already Derek Steven's an influential figure I mean it might not be on the same scale in terms of influence as perhaps the properties that we've mentioned but I I know if maybe in a few years how you think you know we'd look back on on the legacy of this the very kind of flashy very beautiful looking property in an area that wasn't necessarily associated with that kind of property in the past yeah Circus Circus are a game changer in terms of downtown Las Vegas and there's a huge amount of resonance I think with Circa and Regional properties as well and not just are the operations topnotch and the programming fantastic but the idea of using Community as a driver of visitation so the the use of of sport it's not just the best place in the world to watch sport it's also the second best place in the world to watch sport in the if you're not at the game f it's better sometimes better to watch it there than be at the game but the idea of of watching with people the idea of bringing people together is something that was uh that downtown that Fremont had encouraged in the last 10 years and CA has kind of become the hub for that it's taken on Spades so you can watch any game whether it be soccer Hockey baseball basketball American football in this in that venue and you're with 4,000 likeminded people if the weather's nice you can go up to the pool and watch it in outside in the sunshine it is it is strategically very very um tight but moreover from a revenue and an operating point of view they're um are bars and restaurants every couple of every 50 feet right it's a place where you're encouraged to go and interact and drink and engage and by the way uh if you go up to the Legacy Bar at the ground on the ground floor and you take the elevators upstairs to see the panoramic views of like figures there is a photograph of J Sno on the wall are the opening Circus Circus right that's not an accident right because Derek Derek Stevens who is probably the best operator in the world and circuit is certainly won the North American Casino award best casino uh for the last three years in a row has studied this stuff he knows about the psychology of people and whereas 60 years ago we went the attraction was to get people OD and escape from reality what people want now with this next Generation Now want are to be with other people for a sense of belonging and for a sense of community and sport does that um and and again trying to understand that these real estate assets are not about the bricks and the mortar they're about the people you want to come into them and why they come in and understand them and that's the difference that's what each of these five properties have done right they've understood who their customers are most of those customers have not had something in this market for them already and it has given them the it these properties have met the needs of that customer demographic whether they that is functional or emotional or you know any any other need that they had these properties have met them and to a much smaller extent in downtown Las Vegas cker has done exactly the same there's there's a number of others we could we could inevitably talk about but we also undoubtedly couldn't mention every single one I think we we've talked about the guitar um I think that could be a good a good note to end on because obviously we're we're in a position where we you know it's not up yet we we don't know ex you know number a great many number of different things could unfold but how do you see it fitting into Las Vegas Skyline because just just even physically just saying hey there's a big guitar in Las Vegas you know it is a game changer even just on an aesthetic level yeah so let's if you take a look a a a a broader uh look you have font and blue Resorts World and new property down by the baseball proposed baseball stadium you're looking at a Tillman fatita postal property going up and a hard rock opening up within you know decade span hard rock is slightly different it is it is a great operator with a diversified database but it's not I say this in the nicest possible way it's not a high-end luxury brand the hard Ro brand is a cool counter count Counter Culture anti-establishment uh brand with music at its core it is far more populous and accessible and consumable than what those other brands are I I and I think you know if one looks at at the the new properties coming to Las Vegas and the pantheon of Brands and operators that come hard rock is a known quantity it's customers are known quantities and the programming we don't quite know exactly it's going to be but I can tell you it's going to be very accessible and very consumable and in many ways it's much if one looks at those you know those properties we talked about it's a stardust it's much more of a stardust than it is anything else it says we are going to be big we're going to offer loads of stuff we're going to be really accessible and because of our size scale and offering we're going to attract our type of customers that we want is it a game changer I think you know the Strategic positions are laid out um if it's done well it's very difficult for sorry if the property is developed well it's very difficult for it not to do well in this market hard Ro customers are already here right and that property will just you know scoot them up yeah so uh I I say I say this often in gaming plenty to look forward to but here I really do mean it and and as you say in in about 10 years we we could see you know we're seeing a lot of change a lot of potential uh for the future um even even recently like you say that the Phantom blue only just opened Resorts World is pretty new um you know but as you say things are always changing in Las Vegas and and that will never change yeah I mean that's that's been the one great thing about studying the history and the evolution of this place the these properties span decades from 58 in case of Stardust 2010 with the Cosmopolitan it tooks it T seum the Clark commissioner said recently The Last 5 Years in Las Vegas we've had the sphere Resorts World fonton blue Alle legiance stadium and a Stanley Cup winning side with the new team any two of those in any other City would be completely defining we've had five in the in the last five years and all we're talking about is what's coming next that is the one of being and working in this city and I would encourage many of your you know viewers and you know readers of the magazine if you haven't come and experience this place find a Time find a week just walk around uh fully in agreement there um but uh Oliver as always a pleasure speaking with you thanks thanks very much for your time really enjoyed the in-depth discussion and I'm sure we'll do it again soon thank you thank you for having me always a pleasure and to our viewers as well thanks for watching and I'm sure you learned something hope you enjoyed the discussion

[Music] oh [Music] hello viewers and welcome to the latest episode of the Huddle I&#39;m joined by a very familiar face and old old guest uh old friend uh Oliver L CE of denstone group and regular gaming America contributor Oliver thanks for joining us good morning Tim how are you very well thanks and how are you oh we&#39;re great great all is H hotting up nicely in Las Vegas this summer yeah uh I mean it&#39;s even warm here in London which is which is an absolute Rarity but uh yeah plenty plenty to discuss with with Vegas which which we will do today yeah you have no idea how hot it is it&#39;s a virtual oven so a pleasure to be inside talking to you rather than outside yeah with the airor on um well we we&#39;re running this uh this interview in accompaniment really with uh your latest article for gaming America magazine um talking about the five properties that really uh make made Las Vegas and and we know you&#39;re an expert in in the history of of the region and the and the space um maybe to start off with you know we&#39;ve got the closures of the Tropicana and the Mirage um potentially well not potentially changing the landscape of Vegas if we to look for look ahead before we look back um how might that change things we&#39;re kind of looking at a helicopter view of of Vegas so there&#39;s there&#39;s two things first of all there&#39;s the historical position because both these properties are part of Rich tapestry and Legacy of the city um you know the the tropican are get one of the oldest properties on the Strip it also means there going to be you know 5,000 additional rooms coming to the market so that&#39;s that means that uh with the newer properties that have opened up there&#39;s a a chance to try and capture those customers and then we wait an anticipation for the new properties that going to rise in in the rubble from the rubble of these of the of the Mar in the tropicano whether they&#39;re coming in two years or or five years the city continues to to reinvent with new properties and new ideas and I think everybody who lives out here has their favorite property or or you know can point to various turning points in the city and what I wanted to try and do having had this discussion with so many people is offer my my Russ for what I think the properties were that changed Las Vegas and and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to sit down and and take this discussion and um and research it properly and and offer you know my five to your readers no absolutely it&#39;s it&#39;s our pleasure to include them uh you touched on the properties that might be coming uh in place of you know the Mirage and Tropicana in in the in the future that&#39;s something we touch on uh later on uh but when you talk about Vegas always changing um it it&#39;s it&#39;s crazy to think first of all that when we sat down at G2 that was already about eight nine months ago it&#39;s amazing how time flies but back then we touched on you know the the sporting Legacy that Vegas is now starting to build and how it&#39;s the entertainment capital of the world after kind of so many changes in its Evolution already yeah I I think when we sat down last last September October time the way I felt about this city was we were kind of at the end of one cycle and at about to start the beginning of the next cycle and there was something tangible about that in the air that we&#39;ve gone through this postco period there been a bit of a cash grab by The Operators we&#39;ve come people have come and we&#39;ve we&#39;ve offered lots of highend leisure experiences but we&#39;re moving to that next phase as conventions have returned as sport has come big time with the Super Bowl in Formula 1 and I&#39;ll talk about this maybe a little bit at the end the arrival of the sphere which has been not now that we&#39;ve now that it&#39;s open and we&#39;ve seen it operating for six seven months we can notice not just its attraction but also its disruptive effect on the wider Market as we say plenty to plenty to look ahead to but let&#39;s let&#39;s look back and and the your top five properties or your five properties that changed Vegas the first one you&#39;ve gone with the Stardust and I wanted to do a little kind of word association having having read the article which our readers will will soon be able to access um the word that came came to mind for me when you or the phrase a couple did but we&#39;ve gone with mass market for this one so Stardust Mass Market tell us all about it yeah so what&#39;s interesting is you know the Las Vegas in particular the strip had already been knocking about for over a decade when the Stardust arrived and and what I found interesting was with the Stardust it opened with and and I&#39;ve written a little bit about the history and the evolution of it which itself could be a movie right the development uh and and how it came to be but when the star just opened in 58 it had over a thousand rooms albe in a motel style and if you put that into context and excuse me my numbers may be a little bit weary but um you know I think the Sands opened with 200 rooms and the desert in had 300 and the Riviera had about 290 odd so you&#39;re talking about a property opening over three times the size of what the market was and of course when the flamingo open famously didn&#39;t even have a hotel so you&#39;re you you you&#39;re you&#39;re now taking Las Vegas which was this small uh owner managed properties owner operated properties um and creating something for the mass Market where the people that ran the properties weren&#39;t necessarily creating it for people like them they were creating it for other people so you saw when the F when the the star just opened it wasn&#39;t just a desert Motif it get a little bit more atomic age a little bit more futuristic it opened with a a showroom rather than an Entertainer it had a drive-in movie theater it had an RV park it was a lot more mass Market middle class than what what the existing the then existing Las Vegas offer was and it encouraged people to come to Las Vegas who wouldn&#39;t necessarily have come there or thought it was beyond their price point over the over the time the duration that the uh Stardust existed and of course ownership changed but there was you know significant mob influence in the property you saw Innovations led by Frank rosenal for for decades the sports and it was the first sports book on the Strip not the first in Las Vegas but it was the first on the strip and what we see now is as the modern sports book comes from what rosenal um implemented in the Stardust and of course you know when I say it could be a movie that that period was famously movie in the film casinos so there&#39;s so many stories to do with the Stardust and its Evolution um and even when the mob were cleared and boy came in it still didn&#39;t pretend to be anything that it wasn&#39;t it became a very large very successful Mass Market middle class property and I think in many ways the expansion of Las Vegas in the 80s and the 90s the tone was set by the Stardust back in the 50s if you perhaps to give that maybe like an influence rating out of 10 or out of five stars or whatever system we want to use I guess because because it because of that mass Market opportunity you talk about um I mean how how influential was a stardust because will be ranked very highly on the list now yeah I mean it wasn&#39;t the defining property of Las Vegas but it certainly shifted what H how the business worked and it also meant for example that the casino could be bigger and lower or created that whole grind joint um Mass Market casino floor how was it seven 7 to8 in terms of influence interesting I I think we should do this for every property and we can have a nice little comparison but next up is is Caesar&#39;s Palace still around of course iconic I mean I&#39;m a friends fan so that&#39;s the casino they went to when they went for the trip and friends um and the word that stood out to me from from from your section was escapism yeah so H I&#39;ve written in the past about Caesar&#39;s Palace in terms of the way J Sno and Stan Malon who created and and conceived Caesar&#39;s Palace was a Fusion of all their different experiences from time spent in Italy to opening up motor homes Across America the use of architecture and design and lighting and visiting the font blue Miami it kind of all came together Stan Malon before he passed away said to me and I always remember this he said we captured lightning in a bottle with Caesar&#39;s Palace so how much of it was deliberate and how much of it was you know accidental due to to the intuition of Saro and and his personality as a gambler I&#39;m going to think a lot of it was intuitive right and accidental so that doesn&#39;t uh negate from its importance but it completely redefined what a casino could be and what Las Vegas was in terms of design we&#39;re talking about the use of again trees lighting fountains driveways which are now ubiquitous and highend properties but were born out of Caesar&#39;s Palace the use of the casino as the central Hub where the energy is 247 born in Caesar&#39;s Palace the idea of theming a casino or a resort was there in Caesar&#39;s Palace and I mean to guess you had western themed properties but nothing is flamboyant as What was seen in Caesar&#39;s and also in terms of branding you know Caesar&#39;s Palace was the first branded property that appeal that appealed primarily for its brand rather than who the Entertainer was you know to be honest the Sands the desert and the Junes they were mainly interchangeable um and the rational to stay was who the headliner was moreover the idea of emotion and experience and escapism was front and center at Caesar&#39;s Palace and I don&#39;t want to um talk about Circus Circus because the two of them are kind of linked together both created by Sno and Malon if if if one looks at Caesar&#39;s Palace you can you have to kind of put a little bit alongside Circus Circus so for example Circus Circus opened with 700 slot machines two years after Caesar&#39;s Palace opened Caesar&#39;s had 200 slot machines Caesars had six bars in restaurants cus cus had 14 bars so the the the germination of what modern casinos were were as they are now started at Caesar&#39;s Palace and expanded and iterated um over the next 55 years and by the way you know if if you look at it all the other Legacy properties that exist in Las Vegas and probably anywhere only caes Palace is the one that has continued to remain relevance remain relevant today and again you know it&#39;s not something you can replicate it is a it is a brand and an experience that has resonance with customers you know of of every generation the point you made about kind of the the casino floor being the The Hub and the center of the property maybe a slight geographical digression but that just isn&#39;t influential in Vegas because obviously you&#39;ve got maau and you know we were in Manila recently and um a lot of the casinos they you know reminded me just of a Vegas casino because you you have that that Central that Central Hub they all could have been none of them were none of the ones I was at were like a MGM casino but you could have could have easily mistaken it for MGM or or a Caesar because of that that concept that you mentioned of kind of casino right in the middle and it kind of leads you everywhere else in the property influence rating out of 10 10 10 okay yeah okay tic interesting yeah um for sure yeah so that&#39;ll take us to the Mirage which was your third one interesting to see how that ranks in comparison got I got to stay there luckily last year U you know people won&#39;t be staying there anymore but the word uh Innovation really for the Mirage yeah I mean Innovation iteration could remember Caesar&#39;s when open had 680 RS it wasn&#39;t to make a resort and what what happened with was it expanded to meet demand over the years um I have I have a quote I don&#39;t I don&#39;t know if I actually put it in the article but I have a quote from Alan Feldman who opened the Mirage with Steve wi long-term Mirage executive and he said um it is worth noting Steve wi gave Sno credit for establishing the template for Casino design a spectacular entry a sense of place throughout the property and with the casino serving as the main artery for everything else with restaurants and Retail ringing this space as as Felman said to me when one said if you could find an original Caesar&#39;s Palace ground plan and overlay The Mirage they&#39;d be almost identical so what I said before with Sno having this raw intuition on Casino design and customer psychology when bought into it and again when I when I wrote my piece for you guys on Sarno a couple of months back um Heidi said to me when they would go out for dinner on a Friday night Steve wi who was a young Casino developer would often join them on Friday night and he and when in Sno would discuss Casino design for hours you know on a Friday night at the Country Club so you know there is clearly a lineage an iterative lineage between Caesar&#39;s Palace and wind&#39;s properties which are the Mirage bagio and and Treasure Island and all the other ones in the and the win of course um so what the what the Mirage did and I I&#39;ve heard you know many Executives talking about that before is they took a step back and they had had Success Downtown and had success in Atlantic City and the availability of capital markets which were um more accessible than the certainly were in the times of Sno who couldn&#39;t raise money for his Grand deimo they said okay what works at Caesar&#39;s Palace what works at the international what works at the Flamingo so the the international the Hilton what works at Flingo what works what works in various places who are the customers how can we bring them together they did not have the confidence that a 3,000 room Mega Resort for wealthy folk was that whether the market was ready for that yet but they were proved with the bagio that there was however EV it is undoubted that the Mirage from development to opening and operations is the most carefully considered property that has ever opened there was no rle room there was no room for error in getting that property from the ground and opening and operating and you&#39;re right in terms of innovation they looked at everything what were the optimum distances for people would walk from the Elevator Shaft to the room in a way that the other properties of the time missed a couple of tricks for example the MGM Grand you know the distances to Walker were considerable um but certainly The Mirage was very carefully considered very architecturally tight and I think you have to thank you know Joel Bergman the late Joel Bergman for that and again we talk about it being a themed property it wasn&#39;t like Paris where it was a replica of of Paris or the Venetian where it was a replica of Venice it was about how you feel they taken that snal sense of escapism and try to replicate the idea of being on vacation it was the first property to be scented if you remember the original color palette of of the Mirage it was bright it was happy people smiled and the deliberate uh strategy or aim of those operating The Mirage was for you to have positive emotional connections with the property have memories of being the prop and if you have a positive memory and a positive experience you will be back and it was the first to take emotional loyalty deliberately as a strategy and again if you see the way that loyalty has dominated um the Las Vegas strategic thinking or gaming strategic thinking over the last 20 years you can almost point to the Mirage as the one that professionalized and revolutionalized casino operations of management to that extent so very influential but what&#39;s interesting is uh from what you&#39;re saying you can you can see the influence of for example Caesar&#39;s Palace which we just talked about on on the Mirage and uh but in terms of perhaps Target markets uh we&#39;re looking at a totally different kind of customer segment perhaps to what the Stardust would have been would have been looking at yeah yeah to an extent I mean the the if you look if you look at the customer Universe of each particular time right Las Vegas was built the the Golden Age of Las Vegas was built for the golden generation that was post second world war um markets and again even Caesar&#39;s Palace was still very much trying to attract the same customer that that the uh the Sands and the Junes and and you know the riv were trying to attract it it it wasn&#39;t particular trying to bring in new people what the Mirage did was it appealed to people who are winds age who are boomers eff you call them now but you know we call them you know postc World War International more cultured better traveled more aspirational uh Americans and Global and Global customers and to an extent that hadn&#39;t really been catered For in Las Vegas at that time and you saw you know as a consequence of the Mirage those 14 properties open in the next 10 years all predominantly catering for you know post second world war born Leisure and gaming customers M so out of 10 oh again this is another 10 okay it&#39;s it&#39;s yeah it&#39;s the load star for for Casino development and casino design um you know and for the professionalization again without the Mirage there would be no Marina Bay Sand there would be no modern maau there&#39;d be no modern Las Vegas it&#39;s it is it transcends Casino development and it&#39;s it&#39;s a much bigger it&#39;s a much bigger a much more important property for you know Resort and hospitality industry full stop mhm no and it leaves with with some Legacy um next up you&#39;ve gone for the Venetian and the word the word that stood out conventions so we&#39;re we&#39;re talking about quite a departure from perhaps what we&#39;ve talked about so far yeah I mean you got to remember that Sheldon Adon who built the Venetian wasn&#39;t a gambling guy I he was a business guy you know he&#39;d be and to understand the property you have to understand the man a little bit um you know Adison had had had set up and run he&#39;d been in the travel industry and he he&#39;d uh H run conventions he needed a convention center and he needed a a space to build a convention center and then build a hotel to in it so so he had already built the convention center attached to the Sans Hotel demolished the Sans hotel and then built um the the Venetian in its place and Anderson&#39;s thinking was if people were prepared to spend $250 a night for a room in New York or Orlando or Chicago why if I created an allsweet property with the nicest rooms the best restaurants adjacent to the convention center why wouldn&#39;t they spend $200 a night in Las Vegas and and that was completely to a to to a large extent contrarian to what was happening in Las Vegas at the time even the Mirage did not spend a lot of money in his rooms the rooms were small they didn&#39;t want customers to spend time in the rooms in many cases the rooms were were basic inless it were a high roller Suite they wanted to get people out of the rooms and into the casino andon was was much more pragmatic in terms of revenues you know he and he ran the he ran the hotel almost as if it were a shopping mall or a real estate deal where you sell off or lease multiple aspects of the operations famously opened without a buffet you know the hotel didn&#39;t operate the restaurants they were on they were on leased so he was much happier not the hospitality model that we had seen at the Mirage or traditionally in Las Vegas but changed the business model um and again I think most properties nowadays are using third party brands or least deals within certain elements of the business where it was almost unheard of prior to that again you know the the the theming piece you know um I don&#39;t think anybody particularly goes and stays in the the Venetian because they want to be in Venice but certainly Venice and Paris have emotional resident resonance as cities with customers they love them so we&#39; taken on various elements of the strategy which we had uh which we had seen uh in the previous you know 10 15 years but the Venetian wasn&#39;t about gaming it wasn&#39;t about fantasy it was a really cold pragmatic business decision and it changed Las Vegas and Las Vegas customers if you look at the previous generation of resorts that had kind of opened in Las Vegas you had Treasure Island 9 in &#39;93 you had treasure and luxa and MGM Grand all opening within six or eight weeks of each other and a lot of them were aimed towards families if you consider that Excalibur had opened before well Adon oh what Adon said was the business customers are as important or more important than these family customers that were seeking to attract and he was proved right and again if you take away highend Gamers even convention customers are the most important demographic of visitors the city yeah of course it still stands today right across from from The Mirage and um let alone standing today we do G G2 every year at the Venetian it&#39;s as you say um I think that it first I think you first wrote in gaming America I think it was during the pandemic that yeah that that point that if you take gaming out of Las Vegas um you know it could still survive but if you took conventions out uh you know it it it simply couldn&#39;t and it&#39;s just amazing to think given the the history and even popular culture with with with movies and and entertainment and shows that actually that is that is so vital to to Las Vegas now and on that basis um I mean where would you go with the with the influence rating as an eight in terms of you in terms of I would I would I would give Adon a greater influence influence rating than the property however I I think what won&#39;t want you to think about is today in Las Vegas we have 10 million square feet of convention and meeting space right we have 22,000 meetings in conventions we have more large conventions than any other city um in in America I think large conventions than every other city in America combined um and the new owners vich and Apollo are spending a billion over a billion dollars on renovating a property after buying it for six and a half billion so this will tell you this is a phenomenal property a great asset um and one that will dominate the market for years to come yeah absolutely um well said um the fifth number five the Cosmopolitan and uh I&#39;ve gone for youth having read your your your your right up um interesting choice tell us all about it yeah so the cost po wasn&#39;t the first property for the the next generation of customers let let&#39;s make that clear um you&#39;ve seen the Hard Rock open in 95 Off the Strip so a whole generation before um where young people and slightly older people bash together in this wild setting if you you you&#39;ll be far too young to know they F of rehab dayclub to the psyche of young American or young young people all over the world who watched enviously of what of the shenanigans going on in the pool or the palam&#39;s nightclub the pals Casino Resort opened by the Mals which was the first property to have big DJ clubs in it um and European St night life um so they were very much youth or young people orientated what the Cosmopolitan did was it said we have to create something different for different type of customer that is already here on the Strip now part of it was was due to the constraints of the building it was built on eight approximately 8 acre footprint roughly give or take you know uh a couple of points the same size as the lake at the bagio that it overlooks it went up rather than out it created an urban setting because the nature of food and beverage was constrainted they couldn&#39;t put it around the casino floor it had to go up and um and the team that programmed it had experienced at Caesar&#39;s Palace at when um they understood the idea of culture and loyalty and creating an offering for a particular type of customer and to have that emotional resonance so yes it was iterative to what was in the market and the psychology was was also iterative but the customer was new and what it meant was and why I think it changed Las Vegas it became a beacon of aspiration for the then under 40s even the under 30s this is the coolest hotel to stay in it is for a people like us if you go to the Mirage or the baju or the wi or the Venetian which effectively were the leading properties in town at that time you could very easily meet your parents in the Blobby in the morning you didn&#39;t meet your parents in the Cosmopolitan with the balconies which were a huge attraction to um which were because the property was originally developed as as apartment um the room sizes were were naturally bigger the amenities were were were different um and and it really struck a chord in terms of the design aesthetic and the programming particularly the programming and I think this is the other thing which which I&#39;ve given a lot of thought to as well the the food and beverage that was in there was not just functional it wasn&#39;t just a revenue generator and boy it was a revenue generator with that customer it defined the property as something more urban um and I say Urban in the you know and like the restaurants on food and beverage could be seen in Chicago or London or new New York or DC you weren&#39;t pulling in you know um celebrity chefs from the the way they had it in h in in the MGM properties of the time no disrespect to the likes of the men as they&#39;re great restaurants but you had Jose Andreas they were much younger cooler chefs and offerings and Brands than you saw across the strip and again you know that was the catalyst oh something&#39;s just changing on my computer excuse me um that was the Catalyst for the next generation of customers to come to Las Vegas then if you look at what&#39;s happened over the course of the last 10 12 13 years since the 14 years since the cosmopolitan&#39;s opened Las Vegas customers have got progressively younger and moreover it&#39;s kind of sticking now so it used to that that generation who came 10 15 years ago are still coming but the generation uh you know the uh the Millennials who were coming very very young are still coming and we need to start looking at you know gen Z now even though people aren&#39;t necessarily gambling or of age to gamble or of age to play we need to start thinking because the development cycle you know for the Cosmopolitan was F was 20 years ago there yeah you you kind of jumped in with a point I I was I was going to make I was going to going to reference your your recent article generation next and and obviously with uh the the audiences and the and and the things that um properties have to do today to attract a younger customer for example the Mohan CEO uh Rino he recently said to to me use the phrase instagramable moments you know um I couldn&#39;t imagine a a casino CEO maybe five 10 years ago even even necessarily knowing perhaps what Instagram is never mind using it as part of the business strategy um but certainly given that drive today that&#39;s needed from casinos I suppose that really puts the Cosmopolitan high up and uh prompts me to give you the the uh influencer rating yeah well I I think it&#39;s again it&#39;s a seven or an eight right in terms because it will Define every other Casino that&#39;s going up around the country has a little bit of a Cosmopolitan in it in terms of that youthfulness but I will see one thing yeah again about this this this influencer thing I I think the best casino developers and I&#39;m talking about through history with that Sno or when uh or whoever you know we&#39;re instagrammable thinking before Instagram right cool before cool not not cool I&#39;m talking about visually if you can visually C so you know how many people have their photographs outside the front of Caesar&#39;s Palace in front of the driveway in the fountains how many people have photographs of the volcano the idea of creating a visual memory OB in a then a traditional photograph was something that was innate to developers and Visionaries at that time just the rest of the world is much more conscious of it now again take a walk around the wi I guarantee there are at least a hundred postcards right postcard photographs in the wind that you could take that are picture perfect that are framed with corridors and sight lines and lighting right that&#39;s not an accident the guys who developed to conceive these knew what they were doing so I I I think you know we we talk about instagramable moments Vegas has been doing this for 50 years fair enough um so let&#39;s maybe talk about who missed out uh you we mentioned the bagio and what I might do actually is encourage uh any Anyone who reads the article anyone who watches this video to maybe come up with the top five of their own because as you as you wrote in the piece it&#39;s uh you know it could could create a lot of a could create a lot of debate yeah like I said I W I had had dinner with a bunch of guys a couple of weeks ago we were having this conversation and people were a Gass that I didn&#39;t talk about the flamingo in there you know and I have my reasons for it because I I I don&#39;t think it was anyway for for what it with I think the flamingo will have had a long in before it became a a a property and its influences were from you know La in Paris rather than the lights of the the St was very much into what the competitive set was I think the bagio won which was certainly one of the most probably the most important property in terms of the financing of Las Vegas um and prove how how productive a casino could be in terms of Revenue that said a lot of it was and it&#39;s probably the most defining property in in Las Vegas today but I think too much of it is iterative from from The Mirage um and if one were to have to pick between the Mirage and the bagio the properties that changed Las Vegas I think my money would be on the Mirage yeah again with the win you know it is it is stunning um to look at and stunning to walk around but there is a lineage there is the clear line AG that runs between Caesar&#39;s Palace Sno Steve WIS Mirage Steve WIS bgio Steve wins win and what&#39;s a bit of a shame that in you know in a very short period we&#39;re taking out a block of that lineage so when I take tours and I talk to groups and we walk the floor of the Mirage and we point things out one would be able to point at the Hard Rock guitar and say that is where the Mirage used to be um and I never thought I would be seeing that absolutely um perhaps as as a final segment we can we can look ahead and I think the guitar might be quite Central to that conversation but I know you mentioned the sphere earlier and I know it&#39;s had a uh literally change the skyline of Las Vegas um I I know it opened to some some cost and expenses uh but I suppose property of that nature uh is perhaps inevitable um if we were to be having this conversation in a few years do you think the sphere um you know is is right up there in terms of not not a casino but a but a property that has has really changed Vegas 100% uh 100% so I I I just spent the last couple of I was away for the last month and a half or so and I was traveling across the world really and people kept say to me you from Las Vegas what&#39;s the sphere like this has become one of the most important or certainly the most attractive um buildings structures in the world and it&#39;s only in Vegas I mean it is to this generation what the Mirage was in terms of spectacle in terms of Attraction there&#39;s a couple of things it is it is undoubtably a spectacular building h you I&#39;m a cynical old Scotsman but when I go by or drive by you know every time I just think it&#39;s absolutely amazing um to see it U and if you look at now the artist programming is becoming uh um is building out with the likes of the Eagles and sure more people will be announced in the next 18 months or so it&#39;s giving more and more customers the opportunity to experience uh a venue like no other however much as like the mega Resort when the mega Resort period opened in the 1990s it led to increased obsolesence to the older properties and I think one of the things that one we are seeing in Las Vegas is the sphere is kind of sucking the entertainment dollars away from other venues so you know unless you have a headliner an Adele or a Gaga or a Bruno Mars the smaller entertainment offering Staples you know The Magicians and you know the so detials to a large extent was Production shows customers can&#39;t afford to spend $ x00 on tickets to a production show and why you know $100 per show at the sphere and currently the sphere or the other Headliners are winning so you&#39;re seeing the consequences um of the sphere changing Las Vegas and it&#39;s making that whole entertainment piece much more challenging both from a a booking point of view and a programming point of view MH and another one in a few years to sort of throw my two cents in I&#39;m surprised by this myself but if you ask me my my favorite property and I think I talked to you about this when we were at this property but but actually cir is my favorite at the moment I think uh it&#39;s had a good impact on on downtown and um you know uh it&#39;s won Global gaming Awards Galore already Derek Steven&#39;s an influential figure I mean it might not be on the same scale in terms of influence as perhaps the properties that we&#39;ve mentioned but I I know if maybe in a few years how you think you know we&#39;d look back on on the legacy of this the very kind of flashy very beautiful looking property in an area that wasn&#39;t necessarily associated with that kind of property in the past yeah Circus Circus are a game changer in terms of downtown Las Vegas and there&#39;s a huge amount of resonance I think with Circa and Regional properties as well and not just are the operations topnotch and the programming fantastic but the idea of using Community as a driver of visitation so the the use of of sport it&#39;s not just the best place in the world to watch sport it&#39;s also the second best place in the world to watch sport in the if you&#39;re not at the game f it&#39;s better sometimes better to watch it there than be at the game but the idea of of watching with people the idea of bringing people together is something that was uh that downtown that Fremont had encouraged in the last 10 years and CA has kind of become the hub for that it&#39;s taken on Spades so you can watch any game whether it be soccer Hockey baseball basketball American football in this in that venue and you&#39;re with 4,000 likeminded people if the weather&#39;s nice you can go up to the pool and watch it in outside in the sunshine it is it is strategically very very um tight but moreover from a revenue and an operating point of view they&#39;re um are bars and restaurants every couple of every 50 feet right it&#39;s a place where you&#39;re encouraged to go and interact and drink and engage and by the way uh if you go up to the Legacy Bar at the ground on the ground floor and you take the elevators upstairs to see the panoramic views of like figures there is a photograph of J Sno on the wall are the opening Circus Circus right that&#39;s not an accident right because Derek Derek Stevens who is probably the best operator in the world and circuit is certainly won the North American Casino award best casino uh for the last three years in a row has studied this stuff he knows about the psychology of people and whereas 60 years ago we went the attraction was to get people OD and escape from reality what people want now with this next Generation Now want are to be with other people for a sense of belonging and for a sense of community and sport does that um and and again trying to understand that these real estate assets are not about the bricks and the mortar they&#39;re about the people you want to come into them and why they come in and understand them and that&#39;s the difference that&#39;s what each of these five properties have done right they&#39;ve understood who their customers are most of those customers have not had something in this market for them already and it has given them the it these properties have met the needs of that customer demographic whether they that is functional or emotional or you know any any other need that they had these properties have met them and to a much smaller extent in downtown Las Vegas cker has done exactly the same there&#39;s there&#39;s a number of others we could we could inevitably talk about but we also undoubtedly couldn&#39;t mention every single one I think we we&#39;ve talked about the guitar um I think that could be a good a good note to end on because obviously we&#39;re we&#39;re in a position where we you know it&#39;s not up yet we we don&#39;t know ex you know number a great many number of different things could unfold but how do you see it fitting into Las Vegas Skyline because just just even physically just saying hey there&#39;s a big guitar in Las Vegas you know it is a game changer even just on an aesthetic level yeah so let&#39;s if you take a look a a a a broader uh look you have font and blue Resorts World and new property down by the baseball proposed baseball stadium you&#39;re looking at a Tillman fatita postal property going up and a hard rock opening up within you know decade span hard rock is slightly different it is it is a great operator with a diversified database but it&#39;s not I say this in the nicest possible way it&#39;s not a high-end luxury brand the hard Ro brand is a cool counter count Counter Culture anti-establishment uh brand with music at its core it is far more populous and accessible and consumable than what those other brands are I I and I think you know if one looks at at the the new properties coming to Las Vegas and the pantheon of Brands and operators that come hard rock is a known quantity it&#39;s customers are known quantities and the programming we don&#39;t quite know exactly it&#39;s going to be but I can tell you it&#39;s going to be very accessible and very consumable and in many ways it&#39;s much if one looks at those you know those properties we talked about it&#39;s a stardust it&#39;s much more of a stardust than it is anything else it says we are going to be big we&#39;re going to offer loads of stuff we&#39;re going to be really accessible and because of our size scale and offering we&#39;re going to attract our type of customers that we want is it a game changer I think you know the Strategic positions are laid out um if it&#39;s done well it&#39;s very difficult for sorry if the property is developed well it&#39;s very difficult for it not to do well in this market hard Ro customers are already here right and that property will just you know scoot them up yeah so uh I I say I say this often in gaming plenty to look forward to but here I really do mean it and and as you say in in about 10 years we we could see you know we&#39;re seeing a lot of change a lot of potential uh for the future um even even recently like you say that the Phantom blue only just opened Resorts World is pretty new um you know but as you say things are always changing in Las Vegas and and that will never change yeah I mean that&#39;s that&#39;s been the one great thing about studying the history and the evolution of this place the these properties span decades from 58 in case of Stardust 2010 with the Cosmopolitan it tooks it T seum the Clark commissioner said recently The Last 5 Years in Las Vegas we&#39;ve had the sphere Resorts World fonton blue Alle legiance stadium and a Stanley Cup winning side with the new team any two of those in any other City would be completely defining we&#39;ve had five in the in the last five years and all we&#39;re talking about is what&#39;s coming next that is the one of being and working in this city and I would encourage many of your you know viewers and you know readers of the magazine if you haven&#39;t come and experience this place find a Time find a week just walk around uh fully in agreement there um but uh Oliver as always a pleasure speaking with you thanks thanks very much for your time really enjoyed the in-depth discussion and I&#39;m sure we&#39;ll do it again soon thank you thank you for having me always a pleasure and to our viewers as well thanks for watching and I&#39;m sure you learned something hope you enjoyed the discussion

Transcript for:Evolution of Las Vegas: Key Properties

Transcript for:
Evolution of Las Vegas: Key Properties