It was announced today that the Criss Angel Cirque du Soleil show “Believe” which was supposed to open September 12 will now open October 9. The reason given for the delay was technical delays. Probably they are having some issues with the stage setup of the illisions and just needed a little more time.
At least that’s the official story. I really have no reason to believe otherwise. Sometimes there’s hard opening dates set for shows and even hotel openings and there’s a couple of snags along the way. Stuff happens. I’m looking forward to checking out the show actually I think Criss does some pretty cool illusions. If you’ve ever caught his Mindfreak show on cable he does some pretty outrageous stuff.
FYI the show’s name “Believe” comes from Harry Houdini. He uttered to his wife on his deathbed that he would try yo contact her from the dead and the word “believe” would be the codeword. Criss chose it as the title of his new show as a tribute to one of his magic heros. There’s your Vegas trivia for the day!
Wow! Even though the official start of summer is still a couple of weeks away, you could have fooled me! It’s the start of our hot & dry season and the temps will be close to or over 100 degrees for the next few weeks!
One weird thing about our seasons is that our spring & fall are really short, maybe 3 weeks. That’s the best time of year, in between jacket weather and putting the AC on. Get to open up the windows and enjoy the breeze. I’d much rather the heat than the cold personally. Having grown up in South Florida we got used to really mild winters and it’s just a bit too cold for me in the winters here. I don’t mind the change but around March I just go “Ok enough already!”
One expression you hear a lot is “But it’s a dry heat!” Yeah, maybe we don’t have the high humidity here but don’t kid yourself, 110 degrees is HOT! Plus the relative humidity is usually less than 10%. One thing you gotta do is keep yourself really hydrated in the summer. Always have some water handy and especially if you’re drinking. You’ll thank yourself. Trust me on this one! I used to laugh at the water bottle people until I became one! Just something to keep in mind if you’re coming from a cooler climate or you’re from a place like Florida where it’s 90 degrees but it’s 95% humidity. Certainly don’t let it alter your travel plans but just keep it in mind that it is the desert and it’s a different climate.
As I had previously reported here the Hooters hotel was going to be bought out & turned into a boutique hotel. Well, you can scratch those plans. According to the LVRJ.com, the prospective new owners missed a scheduled payment and Hooters terminated the deal. They said that they’s still consider some kind of similar deal if Hooters still wanted to.
Honestly it’s not a big surprise. With the way the economy is going now people have less money to spend on big projects and with no real way to see any solid returns on your investment there’s a lot of smaller projects that will suffer the same fate.
To be honest Hooters isn’t a bad place. It’s got a cool vibe to it, a nice pool, decent food, and hey, it’s got Hooters girls! It’s really about a 5 minute walk from the Tropicana and the MGM Grand so it’s really not out of the way. Plus, c’mon who doesn’t love chicken wings!
Time will tell what will happen there but for the time being feel free to enjoy Hooters!
Word came down this week that the Crown Las Vegas project was kaput. It was supposed to be built on the former Wet & wild land next to the Sahara at the north end of the strip. Citing a soft financial market, the owners scrapped the 5 billion dollar project and have put the land up for sale.
They had planned to have the tallest tower in the US, but the FAA said that their plans would have interfered with the flightpaths at McCarran airport. At first they wanted to build a tower that was 1888 feet! In comparison the Stratosphere tower is 1,149 feet high. They did redesign their tower to be 1,064 feet which was approved by the FAA.
The head of the company behind the project is James Packer, son of the late Australian billionare and Vegas gambling legend Kerry Packer, who in his time was one of the biggest whales that Las vegas has ever seen. He had won and lost literally millions over the years.
The company though is going full speed on it’s other project, the Fountanbleau, which is right next door. And yes it’s named after the famous Fountanbleau in Miami in case you were wondering!
There’s been countless mega projects here that have been proposed and weren’t ever started and this is just another. I’m sure it won’t be the last. As the strip gets more saturated there’s gonna less big projects in my opinion in the coming years. Between the CityCenter, Echelon Place, Encore, and the Fountainbleau that’s 4 huge projects currently underway and that’s a lot of rooms, restaurants, retail shops and entertainment coming up to open in the next 18-24 months. We’ll just have to see what kind of impact those projects will make and we’ll take it from there! Just as always, never a dull moment in Las Vegas!