Lots of people really want to watch a big building get imploded, it seems. That’s evidenced by the huge increase in room rates — if you can find one at all — for the nights surrounding the impending October 9 Tropicana Las Vegas demolition.
The Bally’s-owned former Las Vegas Strip resort is set to meet its maker next month, pending expected approval from Clark County for the permit. Bally’s intends to mark the 2:30 a.m. midweek demolition with a countdown and fireworks show.
Nearby rooms with potential views of the implosion have as much as tripled in price at some resorts. The Global Gaming Expo is also in town that week, although that would not be expected to induce such price rises as this.
Opportunities to watch a Las Vegas casino resort implode have been rare in recent years. The last such event was in 2016, when the Riviera was knocked down, and before that was The New Frontier’s demise in 2006.
The Price
A room at the MGM Grand on Tuesday, October 8, now averages $1,500. A week before, that would have been around $69.
Rooms at the MGM Resorts-owned properties Aria, Cosmopolitan, Mandalay Bay, Excalibur, and Luxor are all sold out that particular Tuesday.
Caesars Entertainment properties have also more than doubled in price for an average Tuesday in October. For example, Caesars Palace is $599 that night, when on other weeks in the month, a Tuesday would be around $280.
Same for the Wynn, Encore, and other major Las Vegas Strip resorts that have rooms with views of the Tropicana.
The Spectacle
Bally’s scheduled the demolition for early morning on a weekday to minimize crowds and disruption to daily operations of the Las Vegas Strip. But it seems like plenty of extra people will be in town to watch it anyway.
The reason why, beyond the awesome reminder of temporality while watching a huge, 60-year-old structure torn down in moments, goes back to Steve Wynn.
The disgraced Wynn Resorts founder ushered in the era of luxury mega resort casinos in Las Vegas with the (now closed) Mirage. And he also pioneered the short-lived craze for imploding casinos in Las Vegas as a public spectacle.
He organized the controlled implosion of the Dunes hotel in 1993, to which he sold tickets for viewings. He even had a fake cannon fire at the hotel from the deck of a ship in his Treasure Island casino’s lagoon moments before the demolition.
As many as 200,000 people turned up to watch. Some 31 years later, the implosion of the Tropicana won’t quite have that pizzazz, but regardless, looks set to draw a significant crowd.
Bally’s closed the venerable 1950s Las Vegas Strip casino hotel to make way for a planned $1.5 billion Major League Baseball stadium.
David is an online casino expert who specializes in online slots and boasts over 10 years experience writing about iGaming. He has written for a wide range of notable publications, including eSports Insider and WordPlay Magazine.
David graduated Derby University with a BA Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.
