Columnist Joe Delaney: Assessing the Las Vegas entertainment scene

Joe Delaney

Friday, Nov. 3, 2000 | 10:20 a.m.

Joe Delaney's column appears on Thursdays and Fridays. Reach him at 259-4066 or joe@lasvegassun.com.

Entertainment continues to be one of the top three reasons people visit Las Vegas, according to the surveys conducted for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority ... Despite this, the year 2000 has seen two of our finest old showrooms, Caesars Palace Circus Maximus and the Desert Inn Crystal Room, taken out of action.

To make it even more inexplicable, two more new state-of-the art showrooms, Mandalay Bay and Paris Las Vegas, are idle now and have been for most of this year ... Paris Las Vegas has scheduled Don Rickles for the New Year's Eve weekend ... That didn't require much creativity.

"Splash" has been revitalized and returned to its award-winning form at the Riviera, and "Crazy Girls," Frank Marino in "An Evening at La Cage" and the Riviera Comedy Club are thriving. There is strong lounge action and occasional shows in the new Royale Pavilion -- the way Las Vegas should be.

There's more

The MGM Grand has Tommy Tune starring in "EFX" in a 1,700-seat theater, plus five- and six-day-a-week action with top stars in the Hollywood Theatre, Rita Rudner doing big business in the Cabaret Theatre, top touring attractions and sports events in the MGM Grand Garden Arena ... Founder Kirk Kerkorian has always been pro-entertainment.

When Kerkorian built the first MGM Grand, now Bally's, it had a star-policy showroom and a production-show room plus lounge action. His International hotel, later sold to Hilton, had the largest showroom plus a casino theater that was really a mini-showroom ... The former Mirage properties have attractions doing 10 shows a week at all three properties.

The one exception at the Mirage is the Danny Gans Theatre, where Gans is doing five shows a week ... We doubt that this will continue indefinitely ... Look for a late-evening attraction early in 2001 or sooner.

In conclusion

A hotel's ambiance sets it apart, but it is entertainment, multiple choices, fine dining and specialty shopping that will give a hotel its share of action from the 200,000 or more visitors who are staying elsewhere ... To make entertainment do its job for a hotel, properties must once again resume operation and control of their entertainment facilities ... The showroom should never be a lease and sub-lease operation.

Look at the Venetian's troubles, where one entity leases the C2K facility and then sub-lets it to Andre-Philippe Gagnon, Melinda, First Lady of Magic, and a late-hour nightclub operator or their representatives.

Weekend wrap-up

The Righteous Brothers are the hardiest perennials -- 40 productive years, selecting and singing songs that become standards, hits more than once over two decades and more, such as "Unchained Melody" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," both award winners ... They put in more weeks annually than any other act at the Orleans, deservedly so.

George Carlin (Bally's) is not a clone of the late Lenny Bruce, but there is a lot of Bruce in Carlin's use of words and analysis of the world today ... If you check the list of attractions on these pages, every headliner has put his time in grade en route to star status.

The Joe Lano Trio closes Sunday, Napoleon's Bar at Paris Las Vegas -- and shouldn't ... An act's identification with a hotel is so important; Lano & Co. achieved this ... This is what made lounges so important to the casino originally and could do so again ... See you next Thursday.