[convextech]

Originally Posted by ScoopLV

You are missing the point -- probably willfully so. My point is that Las Vegas is not an acceptable substitute for Europe, New York or Egypt. People who want to see these places will go to these places. The themed resort is a dead concept. We won't be seeing any more Venetians. Future development will be more like Cosmopolitan and City Center.

Our quest to be all things for all people isn't going to work. We don't have a Broadway. We don't have a real Eiffel Tower. We don't have a Vatican. We don't have a Great Wall. We don't have a coral reef, or decent ski slopes. When we try to simulate these things, we end up looking like Dubai -- pathetic.

The only thing pathetic about Vegas is that you still live there and talk such trash about it. If you are so unhappy, why do you stay? *smh*

[Merrily Gather]

Originally Posted by ScoopLV

That's quite a bunch of "ifs."

And I'm sure you can understand my position that this:



is absolutely nothing like this:

Seriously, what goober says, "I've always wanted to go to Egypt. But it's too dangerous. So I'll go to Las Vegas and stay at the Luxor instead! That's just as good!"

Sorry you had a bad time in Egypt. I loved it there. But Mubarak was still in power and we weren't killing every Muslim we could target at the time. It was a brutal police state. But it was a relatively safe brutal police state.

Let's put it this way: I'm planning a trip to India to see the Taj Mahal because there's a very good chance that it could collapse in the near future. (The structural wooden frame is rotting.) Agra isn't particularly safe. It's a royal pain to get to. It takes a long visa process. There are sections of the city which are filthy. And many visitors describe the experience as a colossal let down.

But it's something I'd like to see, and I'll just tack it on to all the rest of the things in India that I want to see. But under no circumstances am I thinking, "Well, I could just fly to Atlantic City and visit the Trump Taj Mahal as a substitute."

What kind of simpleton thinks that way? I can't even wrap my head around it.

Yes I understand what you're saying. I completely get that you're not going to see the heritage sites of Egypt in Las Vegas. No one is disputing that. No 'goober' is saying it except you apparently. People go to Las Vegas to do things they can't do in those places. That's the whole point. It's more fun and much safer. They not only get a taste of Egypt but they get a miniature European vacation. No one says they have to stay at one place when they can have the entire strip to explore during their stay. It's not mutually exclusive. However, if you go to Egypt you're not going to get all that. It's an entirely different experience.

Those are facts I stated. It's probably easiest to go to the American Embassy in Cairo's webpage and read the security warnings and travel advisories, or the State Department's website and read the country info. Egypt's going through a rough time since Mubarak was over thrown in 2011. However, most of those things I mentioned were there during Mubarak's time too. Your time in Egypt sounds like a tourist. We own property there and I've been going back and forth to Egypt for the past ten years...

Sorry you're having a bad time in Las Vegas while living here. I wish things were better for you really. If it's any reassurance to you know that love and hate are two sides of the same coin and it can flip in an instant.

[ScoopLV]

Originally Posted by Merry Lee Gather

They not only get a taste of Egypt but they get a miniature European vacation.

This is where we disagree -- and I mean COMPLETELY disagree. This statement to me is the same as "the moon landings were a hoax" or "man rode dinosaurs to work when the Earth was created 6,000 years ago."


People who visit here do not get a taste of Egypt. They do not get a miniature European vacation. They get Las Vegas. Nothing more than that. If that's what they want, great. But a swimming pool with fountains is not Lake Como. A swimming pool lazy river with gondolas is not Venice.

Anyone who thinks they're getting Europe by going to the Mojave desert has some serious screws loose. And "goober, hayseed, rube, hick, yokel, and ignoramus" are charitable ways to describe such people.

Incidentally, I lived in Egypt for a year and taught diving there.....

[Merrily Gather]

Then all the housing developments across the country with themes and descriptions like Tuscany, or French, or Asian also fall under that. Seems like a personal problem.

[Vegas_Cabbie]

Scoop, can you tell me why you think you know what people want for their vacations?
Because again... Hate to break it to you... But 41 million people disagree with you. Do you realize that is the same amount of people Los Angeles draws in each year... A metro area with a population nine times greater than Vegas.

Get over it. People love coming here even if you call the city fake and call the people who visit it every name in the book.

I'm not sure how it can be put any more clear than it already has... Vegas is an adult one stop shop.

As many people have said before... If you hate where you live and the identity your city has, who's fault is that?

The tantrum act is far from cute.

[MCOWPB]

Las Vegas will evolve, I have faith in that. And the reason I say that is cuz the Dubai comparison was brought up. Take it from someone who used to live in the UAE, tacky as both Vegas and Dubai may be, the idiots over in the UAE are a breed of their own. When Dubai/ Abu Dhabi goes **** up I'm going to be shrugging indifferently

(I lived there through no choice of my own, I went to school there and lived there cuz of my dad's job, also lived in Saudi too, most of my childhood was spent in the Middle East from like 1996-2005 when I graduated high school)

[ScoopLV]

Originally Posted by MCOWPB

Las Vegas will evolve, I have faith in that. And the reason I say that is cuz the Dubai comparison was brought up. Take it from someone who used to live in the UAE, tacky as both Vegas and Dubai may be, the idiots over in the UAE are a breed of their own. When Dubai/ Abu Dhabi goes **** up I'm going to be shrugging indifferently

I think it's going to take a bunch of dinosaurs dying off first.


I doubt anyone will dismiss what Steve Wynn did for Las Vegas. But his vanity project "Show Stoppers" only appeals to the Metamucil crowd. Sheldon similarly seems to have his head crammed up his sand-hole. Murren and Loveman seem to at least have recognize that the future of Las Vegas is not resorts that try to be something they're not (Epcot with gambling). The future is in events, concerts and spectacle.

(Which, when you think about the Rat Pack Era, was what drove people here in the first place.)

The Dubai comparison is apt. Both cities basically throw pizzas against the sandstone and see if anything sticks.

[Sqibbcakes]

Las Vegas used to have a certain panache. Now LV is the K Mart of resort destinations. Indian casinos have become the gaming king of America.

[anna shun]

I will throw myself into the water, I agree with ScoopLV on the point that anyone thinking a visit to the Venetian is anywhere remotely close to seeing Italy, or that the Luxor is a mini view of Egypt-- it's just not true. It's like thinking you've visited the world after going to EPCOT -- you really haven't. You've received a very sanitized, very American-filtered version of what is merely a theme for casino. No way have I walked into the Paris and felt that it gave me a 1000th of the feeling of actually being on Boulevard Poissonnière.

BUT, it IS Las Vegas. And finding what makes that special is the rub. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that right now, the biggest gap I see is that it doesn't cater to Gen X. Gen X is openly passed over in advertising and marketing bc of sheer numbers, companies want Baby Boomer Bucks and Millenial Money. Gen X simply doesn't have the numbers to compete with that group. HOWEVER. GEN X, though small, has been vital in being tastemakers, and creating culture. It's the generation of everything from MTV, punk and hip hop music, grunge, fashion reinvention, video games and sci fi movies, and anything else we did to entertain ourselves while our parents left us at home. So much is being remade from what was originally created in the 80's and early part of the 90's. GenX taste always translates into $$$ eventually. Perhaps tapping into that culturally and turning it into somethign Gen Xers would flock to, might be something that's worth looking into.

[ScoopLV]

I look at the Strip like a giant cruise ship which doesn't go anywhere.

It is mass tourism designed and marketed to the lowest common denominator. Simple pleasures, simple minds. There is some ridiculously high-end stuff here as well. But mostly these things exist so that the commoners have something to gawk at. Everything has been fine-tuned to suck away as much money as possible while still making the cattle happy to be led to the slaughterhouse year after year.