Afternoon delights: Las Vegas may be a nighttime town, but daylight shows still find an audience

Lisa Ferguson

Saturday, Jan. 17, 1998 | 7:10 a.m.

Looking for a little entertainment? In Las Vegas, it's not tough to find -- so long as the sun has already set.

Say, however, you're in the mood for magic at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Or maybe you could use a good laugh around 3 p.m. Where in the entertainment capital of the world can you go to be amazed or amused at such ungodly hours (at least by night owl standards) of the day?

Four Strip properties -- the Tropicana, Maxim, Holiday Inn Boardwalk and Stratosphere hotel-casinos -- currently feature variety or magic shows midday in their showrooms.

With scaled-down versions of their nighttime cousins -- glitz is generally kept to a minimum -- afternoon shows serve a couple of purposes: Besides entertaining crowds, they also create revenue for casino showrooms that would otherwise be dark until the evening hours.

"Showrooms are relatively big, unutilized areas, and I think the utilization of all your assets is a key thing within any property," explains Tom Willer, director of marketing at the Stratosphere, home to the city's longest-running afternoon show "Viva Las Vegas," which first took the stage at the now-defunct Sands hotel-casino in 1991.

Since moving to the Stratosphere two years ago, "Viva," a variety show starring comedian Dave Swan and magician Valentino, among others, plays to about 1,200 people each day in the Broadway Showroom. "We've found it to be quite successful for us in terms of ... getting people to visit our property who might otherwise not," Willers says.

A not-so-new phenomena on the local entertainment scene, afternoon shows in Las Vegas date back to the late '60s, when the "Bottoms Up" vaudeville revue first played Caesars Palace hotel-casino, and later, several other properties on and off, before its closing last year.

Following a relative void in the '70s and early '80s, the genre made a comeback in recent years with daily performances of the "Sex Over 40" show at the Continental hotel-casino, animal acts the "Sooper Dogs" and "Royal Lipizzaner Stallions" at the Excalibur-hotel-casino, and the "ZaJi of China" acrobatic troupe at the Tropicana (all of which have closed).

Despite their floundering history, today's afternoon shows manage to consistently attract an audience that is decidedly different, but no less appreciative than those found at evening shows, performers say.

Family affair

"There are definitely a lot of families walking around during the day with children and they're looking for somewhere to go and something to do," says Dixie Dooley, a longtime local magician and star of "Dixie Dooley's World of the Unreal Magic Show," which plays twice daily in the cozy Lighthouse Showroom at the Boardwalk.

Dooley, who also stars nightly in "Heatwave" at the Maxim, says he's noticed showroom crowd demographics changing since the late '80s.

"It used to be where people would come to Las Vegas, they would lay by the pool all day or they would sleep late from the night before and they would stay up all night .... and go see a late show or hang out in the lounge, but those days are past," he says.

That doesn't mean, though, that daytimers are easier to entertain. In fact, it's just the opposite.

"The evening hours tends tp seduce (audiences) a little more and makes them a little easier to entertain because they're ready for it," Dooley says. "You're more under a microscope during the day because you have a more sober, a more alert audience."

Rick Thomas, star of the 6-month-old "The Illusionary Magic of Rick Thomas" show at the Tropicana, agrees, adding: "People just have a tendency to think that (an afternoon show is) not going to be what they expect to see at a night show," he says.

So Thomas, who has performed illusions professionally for 15 years, has kept up with the Joneses -- or at least the Siegfrieds and the Roys -- by including a pair of white tigers in his high-energy show that routinely plays to sizeable crowds in the 900-seat Tiffany Theatre.

"The magic is there, the music is there. It's a strong push for as much magic as I can do in a day show and people walk out thrilled," he says. "They walk out going, 'Why isn't this show at night?' "

That sort of quality is essential in keeping daytime productions up and running, explains Ginny Murphy, entertainment director at the Tropicana.

"Everybody cannot afford to go see a Siegfried and Roy (type of show) ... so it's nice to be able to provide the same quality show at an affordable price" of $12.95, Murphy says. "Somebody is not going to come to an afternoon show and pay a night (show) ticket price."

Afternoon delights

Speaking of deals, the Maxim's "Comedy Magic" show ranks high on the bang-for-your-buck scale.

As the name suggests, the $9.95 per person show, which has called the casino's intimate 125-seat showroom home for the past three years, is packed with just the right mix of comedy and magic. (Quirky comic Mac King fills in for regular host Nick Lewin through this month.)

Karl Fikes, Maxim's entertainment director, concurs with Dooley's philosophy of the '90s tourist audience.

"They're not staying up until 4 a.m. and sleeping until noon," he says. "They're getting up at 8 o'clock in the morning, going to breakfast and then out to see volcanos and battleships so ... they need things to do."

For the past seven years, they've been including "Viva Las Vegas" in their plans.

The show's style is reminiscent of "the shows that you don't see anymore, (with) pretty girls and singing and great acts. It was something that had disappeared" from the local scene, says "Viva" producer Dick Feeney.

"Everything got into themes -- a magic theme or 'Mystere' " type of productions, he says.

Initially, getting Sands executives to give "Viva" a go was no small feat, since afternoon shows had -- and to a certain extent, still have -- a reputation for flopping, Feeney says.

"A few other people tried (producing them) at various times, but ... the mindset was that you don't go to afternoon shows." Instead, he pitched it as a marketing ploy -- show tickets were given away to casino customers.

At its peak, "Viva" played in the Sands' showroom thrice daily to weekly audiences of 8,000 people.

So, it seems, afternoon shows are here to stay. Or are they? The consensus is mixed.

"Day shows are very difficult to keep going," Thomas says. "I think that this town is still a night life-style place and though there are a lot of families around to see this, I think that the average day show might have a challenge to continue to do their thing. If it's a strong show, I don't think they'll have a problem."

Says Feeney: "I think the more that work, the more it's going to lead to (new productions). Business is business."