Where Did Las Vegas Go Wrong. — Page 4

Sutton Ross said: "Contemporary Vegas went wrong after the pandemic severely cut into its profitsand casinos started nickel and diming their guests to claw back some of that lost revenue but itis now in a death spiral because tourists from Canadaand other parts of the world don't want to be subjected to Trump'ssadistic caprices.


That’s what I heard for years after Covid, friends who used to love it now spend their money elsewhere. Now it’s overpriced and dead but I feel like they did it themselves. And no one goes to Vegas for musicalsanyways. Vegas is for gambling, eating and whores. That’s all "

Actually, it is known for sports also with NFL, NHL and MLB (Oakland playing 6 games there in 2026) teams playing there. Currently, the Las Vegas Golden Knights are in the Stanley Cup finals (down 3 games to 2)

Updated On: 6/12/26 at 11:13 AM

This post is not about live theatre but about a cinema venue in Las Vegas that I cherish: The Beverly Theater.

They show old films, independent films, and foreign films.

Even though I live 30 minutes south of Las Vegas, I drive to downtown Vegas at least once a week to see a film at the Beverly.

It's a treasure!

People go to NY for Broadway (and other things) People go to Vegas to gamble and spend time in the land of excess. They aren't the same. If I want to see theater (in the US) I'm going to NYC, sure, I MIGHT catch a show somewhere else - but that's not my priority anywhere else.

PabloJuan said: "For the Wizard of Oz at the Sphere, they edited out 27 minutes and added in a lot of things that were not in the movie.“If I were king of the forest” is completely gone. They also cut four minutes out of the munchkin scene. There were several other trims throughout the entire movie to bring it down to 75 minutes so they could get turnover in the seats.

The AI background expanded practically every frame of the movie and looks very cheap. They added extra characters generated by AI that look like lifeless zombies. Often the principal characters were trimmed out of the movie frame and reinserted over very fake looking backgrounds.

The tornado scene is a mess. There are a lot of cuts and changes. There’s a shot of Dorothy looking out the window of the house. They also have Toto floating around outside in the eye of the tornado.

A lot of junk is falling on the audience, including paper leaves, fake snow, and Styrofoam apples that are already ending up on eBay for $400. They have flying monkeys made out of some type of plastic that are hovering over the audience.

During the tornado scene there is a lot of wind blowing on people. The seats are vibrating. And they have real fire. They did show restraint, however, and refrained from dropping a large house on 40 people in the audience.

The theater sounds like a terrible echo chamber. And the extended background looks like something used for a zoom meeting.

Tickets are ranging from $200-$1000.

I think that, due to rising prices, Vegas has gradually ceased to be a place where the primary focus is on entertainment. This might be linked to the fact that many games have moved online, which is far more convenient. For instance, I simply visit https://slototimes.com/ pick a highly-rated game right on my phone, and start playing. It seems that today, Vegas caters more to wealthy clients than to the average visitor.

"

That sounds more like a reimagining than a restoration. At those ticket prices, I'd rather watch the original film at home!

Updated On: 7/27/26 at 03:03 AM

Apparently they’re getting a Vegas basketball team as the NBA is expanding.

Is there still a discount booth on the strip?

What is now playing the former Phantom theatre in the Venetian and the former Lion King theatre at the Mandalay Bay resort?

Timon3 said: "Is there still a discount booth on the strip?

What is now playing the former Phantom theatre in the Venetian and the former Lion King theatre at the Mandalay Bay resort?"

I think the Venetian uses that space mostly for concerts, but they did host the Mrs Doubtfire tour recently and the BOM tour will be there for 2 weeks in November.

The Cirque show MJ One has been at Mandalay Bay since 2013. I've seen it twice and like it. It is more a dance/gymnastics show set to his music and not really a biographical musical.

Updated On: 8/17/26 at 05:44 PM

Scott Roeben's Vital Vegas blog post about Awakenings' closing

"Losses were estimated to be $150,000 to $200,000 a week"

Inception, Rhonda actually opened for her mother when I saw Miss Ross at Radio City Music hall in 2023. She did mention the self help thing during her set if I remember correctly. She was ok but you could tell the crowd was being receptive because it was her daughter. I think she only did about a 20-30 minute set.



I wanted to go to Vegas to see a show or two since I moved back to Denver, but the airfares have really jumped up. It used to be dirt cheap to fly there from Denver. (Granted, it was 2010 but I paid under $100.00 round trip) Fares are now anywhere from $250.00 to $575.00 round trip from Denver. That's ridiculous for just under a two hour flight. And those are Basic fare prices on Southwest.

I know people who used to fly to Vegas and Reno twice a month for a long weekend. They no longer do it. One friend has just stopped going. On the dates I was looking at for Vegas, I could actually fly back home to PA for close to the same price. And I think I may do that instead.

I know Vegas shows aren't the focus of this board, but I guess I'm just egotistical enough to think someone out there might be interested in my comments on a couple of the other residencies I saw last week. I already posted my comments on the Oh, Mary tour on that thread.



Last Wednesday I saw Josh Groban at Caesars Palace. At one point in his show he made a joke that most folks in the audience likely were celebrating their 70th wedding anniversaries. It definitely felt like his target audience are all senior citizens. His singing was very nice, with some very good song choices. I can't help tearing up when someone who can really sing does Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters." But Groban does seem awkward in his banter between songs, and whoever scripted the jokes for him sure didn't help him out. None of them felt off the cuff - it really felt like that part of performing is difficult for him. The show doesn't drag, and wraps up after a quick 90 minutes. He does walk through the audience a couple times to give high fives etc to fans.



Friday I ended up seeing Aussie group Empire of the Sun at Planet Hollywood. It was the last date on their Summer USA tour.



Saturday I went to see New Kids on the Block at the Dolby Live theater at Park MGM. I only went to this because they had been running a promotion with heavily discounted seats. I paid $37.50 for a ticket after Ticketmaster fees were added - so really really marked down. But, don't feel bad for NKOTB. Where they are really making their money is not on the ticket sales, but on all the merch they sell at the shows. I got a plastic Simpson's cup at Jack-in-the-Box for free with a meal. A plastic NKOTB cup for your $30 cocktail at Park MGM was an extra $15. They aren't hurting.

This actually ended up being one of the best shows I saw all week, even though I only remember a couple of their big hits. Jordan, Donnie, and Joey each have enough talent to be their own acts, with Jonathan & Danny playing good backups. Donnie Wahlberg especially sems to be living his best life; he's really charismatic on stage, and so appreciative of his 40 year showbiz career. He started tearing up at one point. Then later Saturday in the show Donny Osmond made a surprise appearance. It seemed like Jordan had arranged it as a surprise for Wahlberg. The audience went crazy. There are lots of videos on social media.



It was a good action packed show with costume changes and stunts, & running 2.5 hours. Afterwards in the men's room I overhead a fellow who was on FaceTime with his wife back home (while he was using the facilities 🤦‍♂️), and he said it was a better show than Metallica. That surprised me. I asked his buddy who was beside of me, who said "Yeah that was a POS - nothing but dumb cartoons." I don't know if a true Metallica fan would make the same assessment?



I did also on Tuesday go to one long running production show: Chippendales at Planet Hollywood. I had googled which male revue was most gay friendly and this show was named as such by Google & reddit reviews. I found discount code online for a pretty cheap seat at the back. But I was dressed for a night out, and on a Tuesday it wasn't super busy - only two birthday groups, and two bridal parties - so when I showed up as a lone man I got seated in a much better location. I was also asked if I was celebrating anything & wanted any special attention but I passed on that. There were other guys in the audience as well, and later on they pulled up one Asian tourist for the one rather tame interaction they do with male audience members. The interactions with women brought on stage are definitely not tame. They get grinded on and more depending on how game they seem. There's no full frontal nudity, unlike the gay bars in Vancouver with gogo boys, but that's perfectly OK as it's not the front I came to see. 😉 It's a very cheesey but fun show - a fun night. I didn't do any of the paid photos or autographs etc afterwards because I'm not that thirsty.



Two years in a row I've done Las Vegas in October and NYC in November (this year will be the 3rd doing NYC just before US Thanksgiving). I have plans to head back to NY for Easter, but for next fall I'm thinking of maybe Peurto Vallarta instead of LV - but no concrete plans yet. Weather was fantastic at over 90° nearly all week, and I did rent a car for a couple days to do day trips outside the city. What's playing Tuacahn next year doesn't really interest me, so I probably wouldn't make plans to drive up to Utah. Anyways, we'll see what the next year brings - maybe two trips to NYC will be the decision.

Updated On: 10/13/26 at 09:41 AM