Image Makeover Is Under Way In Sin City

There are no sure bets in Las Vegas, and no one knows it better than those behind the hotels and casinos here.

So bringing in the offbeat three-man performance troupe Blue Man Group to headline an extravagant show at the Luxor may have seemed like a gamble, but so far the bet has been paying off.

This is part of a change that’s been going on in the desert community for the past few years. With the addition of luxury hotels such as Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, the Venetian, Paris and the Aladdin, which in turn have brought in high-end restaurants and entertainment, the city has been changing its image, says Rob Powers, vice president of the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority.

“What was partly driving that was the spread of gambling around the United States,” he said. “Las Vegas had to really reinvent itself because people were no longer compelled to come here to gamble when they could go anywhere.”

In the mid-1980s, according to surveys, 99 percent of Vegas visitors were there for the gambling. The ‘99 survey found that 69 percent of people cited vacation/pleasure as their primary purpose for visiting while only 5 percent cited gambling.

And nowhere is this change more in evidence than in the Blue Man Group show, which opened in March, and in another spectacular, Cirque du Soleil’s “O” at Bellagio.

Of course, one of our expectations is not seeing something so edgy and smart in the home of shticky comedians and showgirls.

“The best thing that happened to Las Vegas is the proliferation of the other gaming resorts (around the country),” says Chris Wink, one of the original founding members of Blue Man. “The people that own the casinos and hotels (in Vegas) realized that they have to take some risks and expand the reputation of the city and the reasons why people would go there.”

That wasn’t the case even a few years ago, says Wink. “Earlier, it was, `We have different rules in Vegas, so you’ll have to adjust.”’