MGM Grand in talks with Miss America pageant

Thursday, Dec. 20, 2001 | 11:18 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Representatives of the Miss America pageant have contacted two Las Vegas resort properties about playing host to the event next September.

A spokeswoman for MGM MIRAGE said officials with the MGM Grand hotel-casino and its 17,157-seat MGM Grand Garden arena have had some preliminary discussions with pageant organizers.

Pageant officials said earlier this week they would consider moving the 80-year-old event from Atlantic City if state and city officials don't come up with about $600,000 more a year in cash or concessions to pay for production of the event.

Robert M. Renneisen Jr., the pageant's chief executive officer, said he would consider moving the Sept. 21 event out of the state-owned, 10,500-seat Boardwalk Hall.

The MGM Grand Garden has been the site of several awards shows and concerts that have been turned into television specials.

Shelley Mansholt of MGM MIRAGE said the Billboard Music Awards, the ESPN ESPY Awards show and HBO specials for Britney Spears and Barbra Streisand have been staged at the arena.

Renneisen said two Las Vegas resorts were contacted but he would not identify them. MGM Grand, however, confirmed it is one of the properties.

The Thomas & Mack Center and the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts said they have not been contacted by pageant officials.

Renneisen said Wednesday the event would need adequate seating as well as on-site television production capabilities to suit the needs of the pageant broadcast.

Renneisen said Miss America officials were "talking actively" with four interests in three states -- Connecticut, Florida and Nevada -- that want to play host to the pageant.

Besides the MGM Grand, speculation has centered on Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. And officials at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut confirmed Wednesday they've offered to host the event.

Started in September 1921 as the Miss Inter-City Beauty Contest, the pageant was dreamed up as a Labor Day publicity stunt by hotel owners eager to extend the summer season.

Las Vegas has had experience with a high-profile beauty pageant. In 1996, the Miss Universe pageant was staged at the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts, an event subsidized by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and organized through Las Vegas Events, the LVCVA's special events coordinator.

The effort was controversial because the LVCVA lost $1.1 million, spending $2.7 million to stage the pageant and receiving $1.6 million in commissions, ticket, program and merchandise sales and sponsorships.

A spokeswoman for Las Vegas Events said Wednesday that representatives of the Miss America pageant called her weeks ago, but because the event wouldn't draw large numbers of tourists to the city, Las Vegas Events declined sponsoring it and referred pageant officials to individual resorts.

While the event would not fill as many hotel rooms as big Las Vegas conventions, it would likely bring significant media attention to Las Vegas. In addition to the pageant telecast, numerous photo opportunities occur in the days before the telecast as the contestants appear at various events in the city.

The LVCVA has sponsored some high-profile media events for the value of the exposure, even though the events don't draw many tourists. At the LVCVA board's last meeting, for example, $300,000 was allocated for Big League Weekend, a bid to draw Major League Baseball teams to Las Vegas to play spring training exhibition games at Cashman Field.

Those games don't draw many tourists, but the LVCVA justifies the expense because of the exposure Las Vegas gets when the games are telecast to the home cities of the participating teams.