Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
MGM Resorts pushes ‘Welcome to the Show’
JIM Murren occasionally clears up confusion about the hotels MGM Resorts International owns in Las Vegas.
Well, maybe not “occasionally.”
“How about, every single day,” says Murren, MGM Resorts’ chief executive officer. “Forget about people asking that when I travel outside of Las Vegas. I don’t know how many hundreds of thousands of people in Las Vegas don’t know what MGM Resorts owns.”
Seeking to address the question, “Does the company that owns Bellagio also own Circus Circus?” MGM Resorts is launching its “Welcome to the Show” marketing campaign. The effort will consolidate the company’s Strip resorts, including the renovated Monte Carlo when it is rebranded Park MGM and NoMad Hotel in 2018.
Hard-focusing on its innumerable “holistic,” or immersive, entertainment offerings, the company is airing a new “Welcome to the Show” commercial on tonight’s primetime Emmy Awards telecast on CBS.
Murren clarified the company’s objectives on the Strip.
“Our energy here in Las Vegas will be primarily directed toward the resorts that we own today, and what we have done at Monte Carlo, we can do two or three times over the next 10 years,” he said. “If you look at Excalibur, with 4,000 rooms, imagine what we could do there, over time. We have Raiders Stadium being built across the highway from Luxor and Mandalay Bay. At MGM Grand, the west-wing tower is the original Marina Hotel tower. What should that look like, over time? Mirage has some really growth opportunities to it.”
Murren also pointed to the 40 acres now known as MGM Resorts Festival Grounds as ripe for redevelopment.
“There are a number of really exciting ideas, we just need to prioritize them in our own minds,” Murren said. The company will space out these revitalization efforts over the years, but as the man at the top says, “This campaign is the coming-out party of MGM Resorts as global entertainment company.”
He’s not speechless
Louie Anderson is the defending champ in the Emmy Awards’ outstanding actor in a comedy category. The Las
Vegas-based stand-up comic and actor won the award last year for his role as Christine Baskets in the Zach Galifianakis comedy “Baskets” on
FX.
Anderson, who headlined Friday and Saturday at Rocks Lounge at Red Rock Resort, is nominated again tonight. He doesn’t believe in the concept of jinxing your action, either.
“I’m working on my speech right now,” said Anderson, practicing pragmatism. “I don’t want to be one of those winners who gets up there and says, ‘Oh, no! I don’t know what to say!’”
Siegfried & Roy quaff it up
Siegfried & Roy once again tapped the keg to kick off Oktoberfest at Hofbrauhaus Las Vegas on Friday night. The place was slammed, loud and sweaty and there was serious oompah-oompah action from the house band. A real party.
S&R opened the annual festival for 13 straight years until last year, when Roy took the night off. The duo was back together for this year’s fete.
Siegfried is also working on the biopic about the duo, which was announced in July 2016. Philipp Stolzl, director of the 2013 period drama “The Physician,” is directing, and that film’s screenwriter, Jan Berger, is drafting the script, with able assistance from Siegfried.
“We write, and we rewrite,” Siegfried said. “It is a lot of work.”
No casting or filming schedule has been finalized.
Tongue typos
Mike Tyson made what is, so far, the malaprop of the year on Friday night during his “Undisputed Truth: Round 2” one-man show at
Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club. He told the story of how he promised Muhammad Ali he would atone for Ali’s 1980 loss to Larry Holmes by knocking Holmes out himself when he turned pro.
“I was crying and I told Muhammad, ‘Someday, I’m gonna kick Larry King’s ass!” Tyson said, then caught himself and shouted, “Wait! Not Larry King! I wanted to kick Larry Holmes’ ass! I mixed up Larry Holmes and Don King!”
For a moment, I was worried about the safety of the legendary broadcaster …
Also at the show Friday night, comic actor Damon
Wayans and sportscaster Jim Gray, who interviewed Tyson throughout his career, including the infamous “Bite Fight” against Evander Holyfield at MGM Grand in June 1997.