Bottles & Goggles - How Vegas Nightlife Has Lost its Edge

[lalate]

A 8/30/2006 published article by lalate.com. The article received massive raves reviews from industry and clubgoer insiders. Below is an excerpt of that article.

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Bottles and Goggles

How Vegas Nightlife has Lost its Edge

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.... lalate.com provides a stunning new in depth report on how corporate Vegas nightlife is ruining the city.

"What has happened to Vegas nightlife? I can have more fun on a weekday night at simple bar in Los Angeles!" That is what ran through our mind during a recent visit to our favorite venues last Saturday in Las Vegas.... When an average crawl to a Los Angeles bar has now become more entertaining than a fully orchestrated trip to Vegas' top nightclubs, there is cause for alarm. Breaking News: Vegas nightlife is no longer as fun as it use to be.

For years, Vegas nightlife had been on expansion mode, doing everything to rival major U.S. nightlife cities like New York and Los Angeles. New clubs, importing promoters, aggressive marketing, flying in major djs. Throughout the expansion, sincity's lure was exactly what its name suggests, extremely more debauchery and hedonism than back home.

But for months the rumor has been Vegas nightlife has lost its edge. True? Our trip to Vegas this month proved not only the rumor to be true but an understatement.

With the exception of a couple of exceptional venues going against the grain, some covered below, Vegas nightlife is simply not as fun as it use to be. And if you live in Los Angeles, you can now have a lot more fun at a local bar, let alone a top LA venue, then heading to sincity.

Repugnantly rude door staff, belligerent security personnel, hideous music, valet parking - self parking - taxi nightmares, and unattractive crowds are just of the issues that are making partying in Vegas now a nightmare. By the time you navigate through all those hurdles, and still get vip treatment with lalate, you are covered in sweat, your feet hurt, and you want to deck someone to get a drink.

Partying in Vegas has always been a hassle. Casinos have always put clubs in locations that require huge walks from your car/taxi sometimes through 100 degree plus parking structures, always overcharged you for drinks, always been unable to control sea of patrons. But for he most, that extreme bother has always been worth it by why you eventually see. Not anymore.

In one crowded night, lalate visited 1/2 dozen venues, virtually its same previously favorite venues it has patronized off and on for one year or more. The result was shocking. Only two of the venues were run like a real nightclub, where the focus from beginning to end was to entertain you. The rest were run like a corporate version of Mommy Dearest, caring nothing about your happiness at their venue, but rather carrying everything about taking as much money from you as possible. So now that you've endured the heat, the walk that crushes your feet, the masses of people, that you have always been wiling to endure, get ready, because the Vegas nightlife corporate focus is not about you having fun.

Three of the venues we visited treated clubgoers all the same way, as cattle. In corporate America, businesses train employees to greet and be polite. Not in corporate Vegas nightlife. One famous hiphop venue had security, not once, but two times tell us we couldn't stand next to the DJ booth to say hello to our friend the DJ. So we couldn't and didn't say hello. Instead, we said goodbye, to the venue, after 15 minutes. But before we did, other security also told us three other times where not in stand in a venue, none of which were aisles or fire exits. Granted, the venue wasn't even near capacity. For them, you can't stand outside a restroom in Vegas without having security activating code red alert for you. But our favorite is "folks, I need you stand up against the wall." To which we wanted to respond, but didn't, "We are here to hear hiphop, not stand like we are in a police lineup." In fact, one of us stood up against the wall to which we were told to be "more up against the wall". How entertaining!

Another top three venue had no less a single bouncer navigating an approximately 1,000 person single form line of people down a hall. Strange they only had one bouncer and can't find room for another aisle, even though this venue is in one of Vegas' newest and most expensive hotels ever built.

But when we actually saw the bouncer take his hand and smash his fist against the Italian decorated walls in furious anger and frustration about management, we wanted to say "We know how you feel. Maybe you should go chill under the waterfall."

Across the street, we visited another top 3 venue that when it opened last year heads were telling lalate and others how they were going to be "different" and not treat people the way its competitors had done, and would do everything to offer a pleasant experience. Yet we saw a door host tell two guys in front us that, not just that tables were sold out, but basically to get lost. Nice choice of words, huh? Even worse, checking out the crowds was downright painful. If the unpresentable nature of its crowd being let in was not enough alarm, than the unattractiveness of its patrons and the permissive shuffling in of decent but trailer-parked-hoochied-up-ghettoed clubgoers was enough to make a Buddah cry.

Vegas has some stunning looking clubgoers, some of the hottest in the nation both locals and tourists; but when you flood them with these disgusting patrons both local and tourists, it looks like window dressing for a Kmart special.

Vegas nightlife use to be exclusive and seductive. Dress the part, get the look, know the right person, or be left on line. Now, if you are a trashy looking, hoochied up, ugly girl wearing a $3 dollar top, torn jean skirt, and beaded purse who rolls up ten deep with others your style, the door staff now will rush you into their venue. Why? The security guard at this venue explained it all in two sentences. "Both those hosts are inside selling tables. It's their peak hour for selling tables."

Yes, Vegas use to be Bottles and Models. Today, it's turned into what lalate would call Bottles and Goggles. When you need beer goggles to look at crowds that are being let in because the hosts aren't on the door ensuring that only quality patronage is let in but inside selling bottles ensuring stuffed cash registers, then you know corporate Vegas nightlife has lost its focus and its edge.

Venues have become so corporate in selling bottles and more bottles that they have forgotten to pay attention to the caliber of its clientele and the entertainment of its experience. At this venue, that had a line wrapping around left and right for entry, the crowd was so marginal not more than 20% would never get allowed into a top LA venue. It's that bad.

Yet, despite this trend among several of its most famous and highest ranked clubs, we found two venues, one which we think is Vegas' top venue of the moment, and one which pulls in the highest quality of patrons anywhere in sincity, that are truly exceptional, and getting better.

lalate.com now believes that Afterhours at Empire Ballroom is Vegas' number one venue. It is overwhelming, a truly wonderful venue.

Exceptionally kind staff, spotless vip treatment, the best music, dark and seductive setting, and a great vibe so pronounced you can cut it with a knife is what you experience.

Afterhours at Empire called "Late Night Empire" occurs certain weekend nights at the Empire Ballroom, a brown building located down the alley behind Wallgreens (between Aladdin and MGM). It hosts on repeating nights who lalate.com for years has been saying is Vegas' top dj, Faarsheed, who has become so good that we now believe he can rank in the top of djs nationally.

When we arrived at Empire Afterhours 1/2 hour after starting (beginning at 3 am), the line was approximately 200 people. Our vip wait time was a mere 200 seconds. Security welcomed us to the venue, every bartender we had (and they do need more) was extremely nice.

The inside of the venue is not for your mainstream clubgoer that wants to see Paris or Nicole sitting next to a cool underlit box that flashes thirty colors and cost $120,000. Rather, it is dark, under decorated, and seductive. The feeling is New York village underground. If you are looking to sip martinis with your Kate Spade bag and talk about Sex and the City reruns, this is definitely not the place for you. This is a clubgoing experience that is fun, sexy, and so real it hits you in the face.

Dresscode mirrors LA standard. But more significantly, nowhere will you hear a bouncer try to get you to grease them a bengamin because you showed up in Pumas instead of Cole Haans. To compare this venue to another is hard. Our gut first said "Oh, this what Avalon should be." More intimate, more inviting. The venue doesn't make you feel like you are in Vegas, except when you can still hear the building thumping its beats at 8 am with stretch Hummers outside.

While Late Night Empire is our pick for the number one venue in Vegas currently, Mix, opened now for several years, has improved so immensely that it is our pick for the hottest crowd in Vegas.

Mix is located on the top of TheHotel, next to Mandalay Bay. It originally opened as a bar when lalate first reviewed it several years ago. Recently, it added a small dance floor. Either way, to no clear explanation, a venue we always liked has gotten so good we now don't just like it, we adore it. If you want quality, this is TheSpot in vegas.

Mix is subtle. It's a truly stunning black-bathed venue overlooking the entire strip. It smells The Downtown Standard, The W, in its presentation, but its crowd is the hottest looking, most upscale, and simply the coolest friggen crowd you can find in Vegas. In nightlife, incredible quality never gets too wild, nor does Mix. If you are looking for a trashy girl to grab your yingyang during a JT song, it ain't happening at Mix. Rather, at Mix girls came up to us, with normal conversations. In nightlife there is a lot of fronting. You won't hardly ever find a Mix patron fronting.

The future of Vegas nightlife is uncertain. Nightlife has always been a peculiar industry that is driven by equal parts money, alcohol, music, and sex. If corporate Vegas nightlife continues to make its city's focus simply money, then savy clubgoers will continue to discredit its bragging of thousand person line waits as not an indicator of whether the nightclub is hot or not or even worth the trip.

Nightlife shares with any tourist destination the same focus - entertain. Corporate Vegas nightlife is not getting that and are heading to turning their town at night into just another city with average nightclubs.

© 2006 lalate.com