Sh*t You May Have Missed While Miss Behave-ing….yeah.


It’s Sh*t You May Have Missed for the week ending July 14, 2017.

Hey all! BigAZMarty here, back and refreshed and ready to put out the news on our favorite place, Las Vegas!

1. This past weekend Planet Hollywood had to close up portions (and then clean up) after a fire water pipe broke which flooded the Mezzanine Level and part of the casino floor as well as flooding one of the hotel’s Elevator banks. Read/watch KTNV here. Some of the shows (namely Crazy Girls and Sin City Comedy) had to be temporarily postponed while the clean up continued. UPDATE: According to EATER Vegas here, the damage to Planet Dailies (PH’s 23-hour cafe) will require a full remodel and won’t be opening back up until Oct 1. Not sure how this will affect Room Service since it’s basically a subset of the Planet Dailies menu. Jeez, nice to know that their Facility Maintenance Department is still horrible.

2. Hard Rock Casinos and Loews Hotels have announced a data breach and customer information may have been stolen all due to a 3rd party reservation system used by both hotel chains. Read ZDNet here. Check your credit reports folks if you’ve had or are booked a stay in the system when it was breached. UPDATE: LVRJ reporting that a third Hotel chain has been compromised… Trump Hotels. Read LVRJ here.

3. Caesars has announced the opening of Caesars Studios, it’s that big white tent out the back of Paris/Bally’s. It’s a large production facility and they’re already recording “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” there. Read PRNewswire here.

4. Caesars has also announced two new executive hirings to become more aggressive in international development and M&A’s once the bankrupt CEOC has cleared its re-organization. Read PRNewswire here.

5. Ouch…and we hope he’s recovering nicely as MGM Exec Bobby Baldwin fell down two flights of stairs at the Aria Resort. Read LVRJ here.

6. The Blackstone Group has picked up more Las Vegas Real Estate, this time in specialty retail. They have purchased the World Market Center near the North Vegas Outlets near Downtown. For you aspiring room designers and flippers this is the biggest showroom of furniture in the Western US. Read LVRJ here.

7. Renderings of the soon to be Front Yard at Ellis Island on Koval Lane have surfaced via TravelVegas (MarC of course) here and LVRJ here. Hard to believe this is a family run business and they’ve purchased Super 8 (next door) and remodeling those rooms while doing this expansion all at the same time. Since most of the Koval Lane hotels have been eaten up by Caesars Entertainment and leveled on the north side of Koval, Ellis Island will have really good night sight lines of the strip.

8. Westgate gets a $2.2M decision on the case of the non-paying Exhibit A Circle LLC that had the Elvis Memorabilia on display at the Westgate when Elis Presley Way was freshly renamed. Read LVRJ here. The property case is still up as that lawsuit was on hold until the rent issue was dealt with.

9. LVRJ has an interesting article on how Golden Entertainment will be a “great fit” as owners of The Stratosphere, both AZ Charlies and the Laughlin Aquarius. Read LVRJ here. Personally, I just can’t wrap my head around going from Slot Route, Pubs, and some small Pahrump casinos to buying some large LV and Laughlin properties. Maybe it’s Dotty’s envy as they own the Boulder City Hoover Dam Lodge and Laughlin River Lodge.

10. SLS is having an interesting HR week or two, after hiring a lot of Aliante’s people (read LVRJ here) they lose the top two guys they hired back in January, read LVRJ here. Alex Merulo’s group will be taking over on gaming approval in the 3rd Quarter….suggestion to him is to buy the All Net Arena Land and expand as a large Sahara.

11. Kats via LVRJ reports that Cirque du Soleil has merged with Blue Man Group, read here. I’d say MGM is set to pay just one company now for their main everyday resort entertainment….the only exclusion is Excalibur and Monte Carlo (soon to be Park MGM/NoMad).

12. For you that missed 4th of July fireworks here is the YouTube link from Robin’s coverage at Caesars Palace here.

13. Vital Vegas has a nice pictorial on the demo of Palace Station’s old hotel wings here. Wrapped in an OJ wrapper as well…too funny. This will clear the space for the new tower that will be between the existing tower and the I-15.

14. MarC via FrontDeskTip also has a fairly concise list of Caesars improvements in Las Vegas here. The convention space is interesting because the Caesars Studio is back there as well behind Bally’s. Of note, a small sportsbook at The Cromwell opening back near check-in at the former high roller slot area. My wife and I have stayed there at Cromwell and the casino floor on the north side is fairly underutilized. I’d seriously move the Video Poker to the North Side and Slots to the South Side. At least that would give the casino floor some consistency.

15. Eater Vegas has coverage of The Cromwell’s new 24-hour Quick Serve option, Eatwell here. A $12 Italian? Really? They should have put in an Earl of Sandwich instead.

16. Downtown Grand is expanding even further with the announcement of another hotel tower per Eater Vegas here. It will be eight stories and mimics the existing tower look but will be a lot longer and lower than the existing towers. An additional 495 rooms to be part of the resort on the 4th Street side between Ogden and Stewart Aves.

17. WTF, this ACEP deal while selling it to Golden Entertainment is, well, just odd. So The Stratosphere and Laughlin’s Aquarius will be BW Premier locations in an affiliation with Best Western. Read Commercial Property Executive here. For you that did not know there is already a Best Western on the strip, Casino Royale between Harrah’s and Venetian is the only other casino/hotel on the strip to carry the Best Western name (Best Western Plus). Arizona Charlies (both locations) are excluded from the deal.

18. Bally’s finally has a new show in the former Drai’s club (now called the Back Room) and it’s called the “Miss Behave Gameshow.” It’s really different than what was originally said about it, read here at LV Sun.

19. LV Weekly’s Best Of 2017 results are in, read here. The easiest way to navigate is that gray box to the right to get to the categories you want to read. For those of you that have never tried In-N-Out burgers (Best Burger winner) you MUST eat them fresh as there is a huge difference in taste if they’ve sat in a bag for too long…especially the fries…and read here for the “secret” menu for it. My choice is a Double Double Animal Style with an extra slice of cheese (think of it as tasty glue to hold it all together).

20. Remnants of Whisky Sky Bar at Green Valley Ranch have been made over along with the check in area, read here at LVWeekly via LVSun for details on the new Lobby Bar. Somehow windows to the outside are a break with Las Vegas tradition, which is, never let them see the outside from the bar or the casino floor.

21. Industry Weekly (LVSun) has the big shows by date for this upcoming weekend here. I think Bruno is the big draw but Wiz has that YouTube video which has taken the most music video watches title recently.

22. Robin via Niche via LVRJ reports Britney has donated $1M to Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation Britney Spears Campus read here. All from ticket sales from P”iece of Me” at Axis Theater…lets hope she resigns that residency to continue the charitable work in Nevada.

23. Robin also has Hooters International Swimsuit Invitational coverage at The Palms, he hasn’t yet posted the final photos yet so here is his preview.

24. Casino.org reporting more approvals for Caesars CEOC re-org (OpCo remains Caesars and PropCo REIT goes to Bond and Debt Holders) specific for New Jersey and Atlantic City here. Of note, there is the tidbit about the CEOC coming out of bankruptcy in September pending all regulatory and stockholder approvals.

25. Finally, we know where the Mayweather/McGregor fight will be held and what date, Aug 26 at T-Mobile Arena (expect a huge upswing in surge parking at nearby MGM parking garages). According to LVRJ’s article here they had to move the Big3 basketball games to MGM Garden Arena for that date. Pay per view price is $89.95

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Las Vegas news and updates. Now to our Editor-In-Chief, Michael Movestro, for our stuff and more.

Thanks, BigAZMarty! You are spot-on about eating IN-N-OUT while it’s hot and fresh, btw. Hey, peeps! Here are the stories we brought you last week:

That’s it for this week, we’ll see you next week. Have a great weekend!

3 thoughts on “Sh*t You May Have Missed While Miss Behave-ing….yeah.

  1. #16 – correct me if I am missing something here but does the Downtown Grand really need 495 more rooms? The one time I was there it was d-e-a-d. And I am not sure to smile or cry that there is another something in Vegas that is going to be called The Quad.

    1. From what we’ve heard the new Citrus pool events at Downtown Grand are a huge success and part of why they are looking to add more rooms and amenities. I see it as they are still trying and evidently it’s starting to stick enough to expand the property now to gain more profits. That and the fact it’s the next closest resort to Zappos isn’t a bad thing either.

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