施展聖誕魔法
聖誕假期快樂氛圍在永利拉斯維加斯全面瀰漫，三位娛樂專家對談幕後故事，帶我們感受更多精彩。
聖誕假期快樂氛圍在永利拉斯維加斯全面瀰漫，三位娛樂及設計專家對談幕後故事，帶我們感受更多精彩。
Three entertaining experts take us behind the scenes as the holidays get into full swing at Wynn Las Vegas. 永利拉斯維加斯隨處可見華麗的植物裝飾、琳瑯豐盛美食，還有滿佈閃亮水晶和華麗紅絲絨的娛樂場，好像永遠瀰漫著慶祝節日的熱鬧氣氛。但是當聖誕新年節日真正到來，這裡就全面變身成為活力十足的盛大節日佳境，製作出像汽車一樣大的薑餅屋，還有會令《格列佛遊記》的作者Jonathan Swift也興奮起來的Lilliputian精靈村。永利設計執行副總裁Roger Thomas說：「這是一年一度我們專為小朋友們發揮創意設計的時候，感覺非常開心有趣。」每年Thomas都會鉅細無微地指導佈置，而永利蛋糕藝術大師Flora Aghababyan為永利自助餐製作精緻的薑餅屋，花藝經理Evelyn Herrera配合打造出華麗佈置。這三位在Tableau茶聚，品嚐下午茶和馬卡龍，談論這場12月魔法的創造過程。 WITH ITS LAVISH BOTANICAL DISPLAYS, DECADENT DISHES AND A CASINO THAT GLOWS WITH RED PLUSH AND SHIMMERING CRYSTAL, Wynn Las Vegas always feels like it’s ready for a celebration. But when the holiday season arrives, it becomes a full-scale, kinetic holiday production, from a cookie house the size of a town car to a Lilliputian village that would thrill Jonathan Swift. “It’s that time of year when we get to design, not for adults, but for children. That’s great fun,” says Roger Thomas, executive vice president of design at Wynn. Each year, Thomas oversees tiny details and big gestures, while master cake artist Flora Aghababyan builds an extravagant gingerbread house for the Wynn buffet and f loral manager Evelyn Herrera creates sumptuous displays. The three met over late-afternoon tea and macarons at Tableau to discuss the creation of December magic.
拉斯維加斯全年都有明亮燈飾和大型表演。你如何讓聖誕節假期顯得更加特別？ Roger Thomas:華麗佈置永遠都不嫌多，但需要集中在某些區域裡突顯出來，否則就變成普通的牆紙背景了。Evelyn Herrera: Roger告訴我們要金色、白色、象牙色結合一點香檳色的主題想法，所以我們把它集中在一棵500磅的樹上呈現出來，這就是我們設計的焦點。樹高近30英尺，有超過2,500盞燈和450多個裝飾品。這個規模有點誇張，當我們想好要放多少盞燈之後，就在樹上做了幾次測試。電工們都有點措手不及…… RT:還有另外一棵樹來配襯它，大概10英尺高，在香港附近製造，採用激光切割的金箔鋼，看起來非常有層次感。我們要用起重機來架設這棵樹。這是永利送給拉斯維加斯的聖誕禮物。整個佈置是什麼時候開始計劃的？ EH:我們從夏天結束時就著手整理和更換裝飾佈置。通常一開始播放聖誕音樂，大家就感覺心情愉快。Flora Aghababyan:我們的意念和設計圖在81月 日就已經準備好並且通過了。每次製作都需要與工程，電工及木工部門合作，所以需要很多事前規劃。每年我們都會做一個巨大的薑餅屋，深受小朋友們喜愛。我們會放提示牌告訴他們哪裡不能碰，因為薑餅屋需要在那裡展出一個月，小朋友們不能拆一塊下來吃掉。但這是不可能的事情，即使父母會提醒說「你不能碰它」，他們還是會弄壞這裡或那裡。我每天早上會帶上巧克力和外層糖衣修補器過來，看看要如何修補好。RT:你的糖衣修補器是不是放在槍袋裡？有沒有把金糖珠彈藏在口袋裡？（笑）我們準備好額外材料，以防需要修補薑餅屋的任何部份。酒店各處有40多棵聖誕 Las Vegas has bright lights and big shows year-round. How do you make that even more special for the holidays? Roger Thomas: Nothing exceeds like excess, but you need to concentrate it in areas or it’s just wallpaper. Evelyn Herrera: Roger gave us the color story of gold, white, ivory and some Champagne—so we brought it to life on a tree that is 500 pounds, and that’s our focal point. It is nearly 30 feet tall and has more than 2,500 lights and over 450 ornaments. That’s pretty over the top. We did a couple of test runs with the trees, once we figured out how many lights we wanted to put up. The electricians were not quite ready…. RT: There’s another that matches it that’s 10 feet tall that’s being built near Hong Kong, in laser-cut gold-leafed steel, with layers and layers of goodness. It will require a crane to erect this tree. It’s a Christmas gift to Las Vegas. When do you start planning? EH: We start bringing things in to refurbish and replace at the end of summer. That’s usually when we start bringing in the Christmas music and everybody’s just in a good mood. Flora Aghababyan: We have projects—the drawings, the ideas—ready and approved by Aug. 1. Each time there is something to do with the engineering, the electrical, the carpentry shop, so it involves a lot of advance planning. Every year we make a giant gingerbread house. Children love it. We always have the signs telling them where they cannot go, because it’s sitting there for a month—they cannot take something and put it in their mouth. But they can’t not, even when their parents say, ‘No, you can’t touch it.’ They break this, they break that; I come in each morning with my chocolate, my royal icing and see how I’m going to fix it up.
樹，還有各色花環和精靈村莊。有些還會移動，如有一列火車穿行，小降落傘上下升降。所以你常常看到很多家庭在排隊等待降落傘升到合適的高度拍照。小朋友們真的很想衝進佈景裡。還有那些植物聖誕花……我們要每天檢查及進行更換。我們今年還有特別栽培金色聖誕花，這是我們獨有的。EH:因為我們希望一切都是金色和銀色主調，包括聖誕花植物也是這樣。今年還有小小的白色聖誕花，非常獨特和美麗。在設計的時候，來自你或是客人角度對往昔時光的懷念，還有童年假期的回憶會帶來怎樣的影響？ RT:在我小時候，母親每年都會把一個微型村莊放在聖誕樹下的白色棉花雪上面。組裝村莊是我的工作，從那時開始就愛上了這種佈置。今年我們為萬利拉斯維加斯的中庭製作了一個特別漂亮的裝置，空間只夠放一個村莊，所以一定要將它做成超級村莊，裡面還有飛行器！ FA:製作薑餅屋時，我們想要講述一個關於我們集團、酒店和員工的故事。我們希望每年講一個新故事。RT:其實為聖誕節做設計時，即使是微型村莊也可以有很多層次、驚喜和深度。我為每個村莊設計了不同的故事情節，在製作時就能發展出不同的風格。所以在每個村莊裡都會有一個漂亮的小捲軸，精靈在上面寫字，捲軸上還有墨水斑漬，因為精靈們不是太會用羽毛筆……我們每個人內心都住著一個小孩，我覺得如果你為一個6歲或7歲的孩子設計聖誕裝置，讓他們感到開心，其他人都會受到歡樂感染。 RT: Do you have a holster that you can carry your royal icing in? Pockets with the gold sugar beads? [Laughs] We must have extras of everything, though. All over the hotel, we have over 40 trees, along with garlands and villages. Parts of them move, and there is a train running through one, and little parachutes going up and down. So you see families standing in line, waiting for the parachutes to be at the right level to take a picture, and the kids are just really anxious to get in there. And the poinsettias… we have to replace them often. It’s an everyday task. We have golden poinsettias grown especially for us—no one else gets them. EH: Because if it’s going to be gold and silver, we want everything to be gold and silver, including the poinsettias. And this year we also have tiny little white poinsettias. They’re very special and beautiful. How important are nostalgia and childhood holiday memories when you design, whether they’re yours or the guests’? RT: When I was a little boy, every year my mother would put a miniature village on white cotton snow under the Christmas tree. Putting the village together was my job, and I’ve loved that ever since. This year we’ve had an especially grand one made for the Encore atrium. We only had room for one, so it had to be a super village. This one has flying machines! FA: For the gingerbread house, we want to make a story about our company, our hotel, about the people. We want to tell a new story every year. RT: When you come for Christmas, even the villages have lots of layers and surprises and depth. I made up the storyline for each village as kind of the direction that each village would take as it was being designed. So on each one, there’s a beautiful little scroll, with elf writing on it, and there are ink splotches because elves are not very good with their quills…. There’s a kid in all of us, but I think if you design for a 6-year-old, a 7-year-old, and you really amaze them, everybody else catches the spirit.