Sp Cityin
The booming club scene in Las Vegas is opening up the destination to a younger audience, Robin Searle reports
I
f you turned the clock back five years and asked the
average fan of dance music for their ultimate party destination, there was really only one answer. Ibiza ruled the roost, boasting the biggest DJs, most famous clubs and most spectacular events. Spin the turntable forward
to the present day and ask the same question, and the response wouldn’t be as clearcut. There’s a new kid in town – and it isn’t pulling any punches. As a regular reader of dance music bible Mixmag, I remember scoffing at an interview with the DJ and producer Paul Oakenfold in 2008, in which he predicted Las Vegas would soon be the place to experience the world’s best clubs and biggest DJs. But as your aircraft makes its
descent into the city’s McCarran airport today, the faces adorning the exteriors of the mega resorts are no longer just tiger-petting magicians or legendary crooners. Where the oversized visages of Siegfried and Roy, Barry Manilow or Celine Dion once gazed down on to the Strip, now it’s just as likely to be DJs such as Calvin Harris, Tiësto or David Guetta. Traditional entertainment still
dominates, of course, with Cirque du Soleil remaining ubiquitous. But the resorts are also investing
massive and increasing amounts in their nightclubs and poolside dayclubs, as well as the superstar DJs who are paid big bucks to entertain the growing number of visitors who are coming specifically to pin their colours to the electronic dance music (EDM) flag. For old-school clubbers, the
Vegas nightlife experience is an odd one – sanitised, polished and mainstream with an oddly ‘unclubby’ dresscode of smart shoes and collared shirts for men. But that doesn’t seem to bother the thousands of Brits heading over for a taste of a growing dance music powerhouse. Where once the Virgin Atlantic
flight from Gatwick would have been filled predominantly with older customers with a high disposable income and a penchant for the craps tables, now it’s chock-full of youngsters happy to bypass the flashing lights of the casino for their more blinding equivalents behind the velvet ropes of the club entrances. This is particularly notable in mid-June, when the annual three-day Electric Daisy Carnival festival caters for 350,000 clubbers at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. But it’s an increasingly year-round phenomenon.
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travelweekly.co.uk 3 September 2015 For the resorts looking to fill a
growing number of hotel rooms and the tourism bosses trying to establish the destination as more than a gambler’s paradise, this popularity with a new demographic is manna from heaven.
And crucially, they’re not just one-off visitors; the group behind us on our flight were chatting with the voices of experience about which clubs they’d be hitting and which were the best bars for pre-dancing drinks. With research showing that
many young people are tiring of the breadth of options on the internet and increasingly turning to the ease and comfort of an agent or operator – particularly for long-haul travel – the younger market to Las Vegas has enormous potential for the trade. And this new opportunity is
being recognised by operators such as Virgin Holidays, which has added a section on the best club nights and how to secure tickets to its Welcome to Vegas booklet. While the ease and cost of heading to Ibiza means it is likely to retain its lofty position for UK clubbers for some while yet, there’s no disputing the fact that more and more young people are looking to the desert of Nevada for their DJ kicks.
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