Smart Meetings

View From Vegas: Come on Down

Author: “Lucky Chuck” Kapelke
December 2007

Columns

GAMES PEOPLE PLAY
Call them the Dream Team of cash and faaabulous prices: Bob Eubanks (of The Newlywed Game), Chuck Woolery (Love Connection) and Jamie Farr (The Gong Show and M*A*S*H) have come together—at last!—for a brand new “show” at the Las Vegas Hilton, The $250,000 Game Show Spectacular, which promises to give away more than $50,000 to audience members every week.

This new show follows the success of the The Price is Right: Live!, which is still running down the street at Bally’s and other Harrah’s properties around  the world. Another game show, Family Feud: Live!, is also rumored to be coming to town soon. And Hooters Casino Hotel has its own game show, called Bonk, which has contestants hitting each other’s helmets with soft foam mallets to ring in to answer questions.

So why, you may be wondering, are we talking about all this here? Because, for the right crowd, a live game show can be a fun group activity. Less passive and more wacky than a typical Vegas stage show, these game shows combine audience participation with game-show schtick. Just watch Todd Newton, host of The Price is Right: Live!, whip a crowd into a frenzy over a game of Plinko, and you’ll see what team-building is all about.

The Vegas/game show combo is a marriage made in heaven, if not in some late-night wedding chapel where Elvis performs the vows. After all, if there is any American phenomenon more Las Vegas than Vegas itself, it has to be the game-show industry.

Groups can either attend a scheduled show or, for the right price, just hire any (or all) of the bonus-round bigwigs to host your next corporate event/sales-and-service-recognition giveaway. (Imagine a group’s top sales teams going head-to-head in a Showcase Showdown.)

If the staged offerings don’t suit your fancy, customized game shows can be readily produced for corporate groups by The Ultimate Game Show, a Sacramento-based company with its own proprietary games and knock-offs of TV games, as well as access to such real-deal game-show hosts as Wink Martindale, Alex Trebek and Jeopardy! whiz Ken Jennings. At the $250,000 Game Show Spectacular, at least one member of every audience has a chance to win $250,000. If that person wins the big prize, everyone else wins $100. Even if no one claims the “ultimate” prize, about 50 people win something every show. The new show is slated to run nine times per week, with Eubanks, Woolery and Farr hosting on a rotating basis.

KOI
KOI Las Vegas, located on the mezzanine of the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, is the latest Asian-designed restaurant in the Tao mode. The grand entrance has massive copper temple bells and equally massive gilded Buddhas, plus a circular lounge with spinning Tibetan prayer wheels for up to 100 guests. The food is Japanese-inspired cuisine. Group events could be held in any of various small dining spaces, including the Fountain Room, which overlooks the Bellagio’s water show across the street. (planethollywoodresort.com)

DOS CAMINOS
Opening at the Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino, the new addition to the Venetian, Dos Caminos Las Vegas, will be the fourth outpost of a popular New York-based high-end Mexican restaurant. The restaurant can hold up to 700 people; a private dining room can accommodate up to 70. If the fancy enchiladas, snakeskin banquettes, waterfall and ancient stone-carved Mayan temple décor don’t draw you in, then sample the guacamole, which has been heralded by Food & Wine magazine as “New York City’s Best.” At night, the restaurant will turn into a lounge, with bottle service, a DJ and a late-night menu. (brguestrestaurants.com)

NEWS
Speaking of Glitz: The Liberace Museum has debuted the newest version of its stage show, A Musical Tribute to Liberace: On With The Show, starring Wes Winters and offered three days a week. The one-hour live show is presented on one of Liberace’s rhinestone pianos and features the legendary entertainer’s signature songs. (liberace.org)

Rich Little: Famed impressionist Rich Little will unleash his 200 celebrity voices at the Golden Nugget through April 6. While the show is mostly dark in December, he’ll be back on Januuary 9, along with his “friends” Jack Nicholson, Dr. Phil, Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra, Neil Diamond, et al. Tickets start at $39 (goldennugget.com).

Buy a Ride to Buy Some Clothes: Got a group that loves deals? Fashion Outlets, located 35 miles from Las Vegas in the city of Primm (on the border with California), now transports folks directly from three Strip locations, nine times per day. Stores include Neiman Marcus, Versace, Anne Klein, Hugo Boss and other name brands. Shuttle fare is $15 per person; charters can be arranged. (fashionoutlets.com)