{"id":2012,"date":"2010-01-22T17:21:09","date_gmt":"2010-01-23T01:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=2012"},"modified":"2010-12-27T13:08:30","modified_gmt":"2010-12-27T21:08:30","slug":"ghost-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/ghost-town\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghost town"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"crystals\"Economic forecasting is a forbiddingly tricky science but you still have to wonder what convinced MGM Mirage<\/strong> that there was either A)<\/strong> an unabated market for ultra-high-end retail in Las Vegas<\/strong> or B)<\/strong> that such demand as already existed could be siphoned away from the (considerable) competition elsewhere.<\/p>\n

This thought is prompted by a Thursday-night visit to Crystals<\/strong>. Had it not been for the media event at Tiffany & Co<\/strong>. (at which I accidentally baptized myself with half a martini), attendance in the mall would have fallen over 50%. Most of those strolling through were middle-class sightseers, just there to look, and the big draw was clearly the marvelous set of water cyclones at the center of the mall.<\/p>\n

Consumption was conspicuous by its absence. The score at Roberto Cavalli<\/strong> was Salespeople: 4, Customers: 0. Maybe all it takes is a relatively few platinum card-bearing sybarites to make this place pencil out for MGM Mirage but for now it’s a tomb … or at least an expensive miscalculation.<\/p>\n

The big goodie-bag offering at the event was a pair of Tiffany-branded decks of playing cards. A surprise musical guest was promised, too. As soon as I heard the limp-noodle Sinatra covers, I knew it could be … it might be … it had to be … yes, it was Matt Goss<\/strong>, clad in black tie and omnipresent porkpie hat. For better or worse, he was 10 times as audible at Tiffany that he was in the “Gossy Room” at The Palms<\/strong>. Maybe he should play in-store engagements only.<\/p>\n

Business couldn’t have been better<\/strong> one monorail stop away at Bellagio<\/strong>. It wasn’t even Friday and the joint was already jumping. Its preeminence is unlikely to be usurped anytime soon, especially when one considers Bellagio’s centrality, its still-mesmerizing fountains and — perhaps most of all — the fact that it extends two welcoming wings toward the Strip in what was intended as an open embrace. By contrast, Aria<\/strong> (below<\/em>) conceals itself behind a thicket of high rises. For those gamblers who like to “graze” from casino to casino along the Strip, making the hike uphill to Aria, sans<\/em> people-mover, is going to require a considerable modification of behavior.<\/p>\n

\"DSCN1282\"<\/p>\n

Thanks to the Better Half’s comp-obtaining Jedi skills, we were able to dine at Fix<\/strong>. The cocktails are extra-tasty there, which makes up somewhat for the conversation-discouraging din. Wood walls, floor and ceiling may possess excellent reverberant properties but in Fix’s case they also mean you can’t hear what your server is saying and vice versa. An injudicious selection of menu items resulted in yours truly becoming violently ill, so today’s edition of S&G<\/em> finds Yr. Humble Blogger intact but feeling slightly worse for the wear.<\/p>\n

This just in …<\/strong> Here’s the current pecking order amongst MGM’s Strip properties, as ranked in a promotional e-mail that only now tumbled through the cyber-transom: Aria ($127+) ties with Bellagio ($127+), followed by Vdara<\/strong>, THEhotel<\/strong> and Signature<\/strong> (all $110+), then Mandalay Bay<\/strong> ($80+), The Mirage<\/strong> ($77+) and then way<\/em> down to the Green Monster, MGM Grand<\/strong> ($58+). The lower echelons are inhabited by New York-New York<\/strong> ($51+), Monte Carlo<\/strong> ($45+), Luxor<\/strong> ($40+) and — watch your step — Excalibur<\/strong> ($28+). The bottom rung is reserved for Circus Circus<\/strong> ($24+), though prices there are probably a victim of the clown house’s increasingly dilapidated neighborhood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Economic forecasting is a forbiddingly tricky science but you still have to wonder what convinced MGM Mirage that there was either A) an unabated market for ultra-high-end retail in Las Vegas or B) that such demand as already existed could … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[65,56,28,18,14,4,64,11,9,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2012"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2023,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions\/2023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}