Question of the Day - 20 August 2018

The Las Vegas entertainer residency has a long tradition of very high-paying gigs. The first that raised eyebrows throughout the land was Liberace. When he opened the Riviera in 1955, he was paid an unheard-of $50,000 a week to perform six shows. Mr. Showmanship lived and performed for decades in Vegas, driving onstage in Rolls Royces, draped in jewelry and fur capes, and banging away on rhinestone-studded pianos. By the ’80s, he was earning $300,000 a week, $60,000 per show.

Elvis, of course, raised the bar with his two-year residency at the Las Vegas Hilton. After that, other than what was known then as “headliners,” the residency mostly disappeared — until Céline Dion resurrected it and went on to claim the residency to end all residencies. Today she earns a half-million dollars every time she walks onto the stage at the 4,100-seat Colosseum at Caesars, built specifically for her show and which she’s sold out more than 1,000 times, playing to more than three million people. Yow!

Ticket sales no doubt cover most of Céline’s nut, but it’s not too tough to imagine that those three-plus-million people walking in and out of Caesars have further contributed to the bottom line. Take food alone — a dinner seating before the show and after the show for people who are attending it, plus a seating during the show for people who aren’t attending to squeeze into. Many show-goers stay in the hotel, and not just for the night. Casino revenues certainly benefit. And Céline has a trickle-down effect on the rest of the entertainment product.

Britney Spears’ ticket prices have been some of the highest in the Vegas residency arena, going over $800, with $2,500 for meet-and-greets. With all the ancillary revenues, it’s been reported that Spears has boosted Planet Hollywood earnings $20 million to $25 million during her time there. It shows just in her take per show: She started at $325,000, which has gone up $175,000 since her residency began.

One aspect of the Vegas residency that's often overlooked in the Céline, Britney, Elton, JLo, Mariah, Carlos, Pitbull, Bruno Mars, etc. firmament is the electronic dance music scene. World-class DJs, such as Calvin Harris, Afrojack, David Guetta, Avicii, and Tiësto, earn up to $300,000 per appearance at Hakkasan, LIGHT, and other trendy dance parties. And that’s just for one guy with a laptop — forget the lavish productions for Céline and the others. With lines of scene-makers waiting to pay through-the-roof admission fee and alcohol prices snaking all around the casino to get into these hotspots, "It's like printing money," one insider was quoted as saying.

And there are now new residency economics to consider: Lady Gaga will be guaranteed a reported million dollars per for her 74-show run at the 5,300-seat MGM Park Theater, which begins on December 28. Double the salary of Céline? That’s a whole other story — if anyone cares to submit a follow-up question.

And for a good look at the Las Vegas residency phenomenon — including the backstory on Céline, the luxury artist accommodations right under the stage at the Colosseum at Caesars, which artists are candidates for residencies, and the original Vegas residencies (Elvis, Cher, Freddie Prinz, and Diana Ross, among others) — pick up a copy of our book Rock Vegas—Live Music Explodes in the Neon Desert.

This is from XY, our crack Vegas Correspondent: FYI about Bruno, if you go to YouTube and type in "Honeymoon In Vegas -- Little Elvis," there's a very short clip from the movie. That little kid singing and looking like Elvis was actually a very young Bruno Mars!