Mirage bids farewell as Las Vegas enters another new age

Over the last week, the property has hosted ceremonies and farewell events to commemorate its 34-year lifespan. Its gift shops have been loaded with commemorative Mirage trinkets. Selfies have abounded as guests have shared memories from the iconic resort.

One bit of housekeeping that has proved especially popular is the payout of $1.6m (€ 1.47, £1.24) in built-up progressive jackpots. State regulations stipulate that money accumulated in these jackpots must be paid out before a property closes.

In the week leading up to closure, the casino floor was packed. Players vied to take part in the hourly giveaways, in some cases pushing and shoving for space. The $1.6m total was split between $1.2m in slot prizes and $400,000 from table games.

Prizes were given out hourly. From 9-11 July, $200,000 per day was awarded, followed by $250,000 between 12-13 July and $100,000 on 16 July.

The Mirage is giving away 200k a day in hot seat drawings 3-7pm. It’s all the progressive money that has to be given away. I arrived at 1:30pm to check it out. It was basically New Years Eve x 5 foot traffic. No seats anywhere. I know so many high level players that were called… pic.twitter.com/Zqskv7JxlI

— Bill Krackomberger (@BillKrackman) July 10, 2024

The final showing of “The Beatles LOVE” Cirque du Soleil show was 7 July. The show welcomed more than 11 million guests over its 18-year residency, per local TV station KSNV.

Sunday (14 July) night was the last night for hotel guests. An official closing ceremony will start at 9am Wednesday. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the ceremony will include an homage to the 140 or so workers who worked at the Mirage for all 34 years. The property will officially close at 11am.

Hard Rock to renovate, rebrand

For the next three years, the property will be renovated head to toe and will reemerge as the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. No opening date for the new casino has yet been set.

Originally, the plan was to try and keep the property open as renovations were taking place. But officials eventually decided that a phased closing would affect the patron experience to such a degree that a full shutdown was the most effective method.

The Mirage’s famous volcano will be replaced by a 700-foot guitar-shaped hotel tower, a staple of the Hard Rock brand. The tower will feature 600 rooms across 37 floors. A new 5,000-seat theatre and 20-plus new dining options will be built in addition to the renovations.

Hard Rock acquired the operations of the Mirage from MGM Resorts International for $1.08bn in December 2021. The land is owned by the real estate investment trust VICI Properties.

As Hard Rock is owned by the Seminole tribe of Florida, it remains as the only tribal-owned Strip operator. While the casino awaits a new future, its past will certainly not be forgotten anytime soon.

Fresh idea for a floundering Vegas

Those in the casino industry are apt to disagree about most things, but the Mirage is universally regarded as one of the most influential casinos, if not the most influential, in Las Vegas’ history. But it started out as quite the gamble.

In the early- to mid-1980s, Las Vegas was becoming stagnant. There had been no new projects on the Strip since the original MGM Grand opened in 1973. The property was struck by a devastating fire on 21 November 1980. It killed 87 and marred the city’s image.

Atlantic City had legalised casinos and Indian gaming had sprung up in neighbouring California. Local labour relations were red-hot, especially after a nasty city-wide strike in 1984. That strike, which lasted 67 days, involved 17,000 Culinary Union members from 32 casinos.

Through it all, Steve Wynn emerged as a newcomer with a new vision for what the resort experience should be. After cutting his teeth with the Golden Nugget in Downtown Las Vegas and Atlantic City in the 1970s and early 1980s, Wynn and his associate Michael Milken raised more than $500m of the $620m needed for the project that was to become the Mirage.

Construction began in 1987. The stories from the design and construction process of the Mirage show just how much care and detail went into it.

Architectural marvel

With 3,044 rooms, it was one of the biggest hotels in the world at the time. Arte Nathan, former vice-president of human resources for the Mirage, and gaming consultant Andrew Klebanow wrote in a 2021 article for Global Gaming Business magazine that its architecture set a standard for other large projects to follow.

“The Y-shaped hotel tower and 24-elevator core limited the distance guests would have to walk to their rooms,” they said. “That design can now be found in integrated resorts throughout the world.”

The property also featured several components geared to help staff better serve guests, including six staff-only elevators and wider-than-usual transit corridors. There was also a state-of-the-art baggage conveyor system inspired by technology at Chicago’s O’Hare International airport.

“Bellmen were alerted as soon as a guest inserted his or her key card and baggage was then promptly delivered to the guest room,” Nathan and Klebanow wrote. “Delivery times were monitored electronically, so service standards could be measured.”

A place to get away from it all

The tropical paradise theme was a staple of the Mirage’s design. Wynn accentuated this by moving the resort back away from the sidewalk, aiming to create a destination that patrons would arrive at rather than stumble upon. He enlisted Don Brinkerhoff, CEO of Lifescapes International, to help with the tropical landscaping.

“Steve told me he wanted us to create an oasis in the middle of a dry, arid desert,” Brinkerhoff told GGB in 2019 for a 30th anniversary article written by consultant Oliver Lovat.

In the same article, Wynn design and development executive vice-president DeRuyter Butler described how the design team aimed to “appeal to all the natural senses”. This included white water in the water features, lighting that imitated firelight and even deliberate smells.

“We were the first operator to scent our property,” he asserted. “The smell of the Mirage was a distinctive piña colada, evoking an exotic location.”

And who could forget the iconic volcano, which became its own attraction thanks to the timed eruptions? It was intended as a way to promote value, in the sense that guests felt they were already getting something for free immediately upon arriving.

A Vegas landmark, a petition was started to save the beloved volcano immediately after Hard Rock’s plans were announced. It currently has more than 11,000 signatures.

A legendary run

The Mirage opened on 22 November 1989. Its opening drew tens of thousands and those who are still in the industry remember the event as a spectacle.

“I remember it as if it were yesterday,” MGM Resorts CEO Bill Hornbuckle told GGB in 2019. “The barriers on the street were removed and immediately a crowd of 25,000 people began running up both sides of the drive through the front door – I had to jump over the front desk!”

Longtime gaming journalist Howard Stutz covered the opening for the Review-Journal. He said in his Indy Gaming newsletter earlier this month that the event “brought national and international attention to Wynn and Las Vegas”. He also, as it turned out, had a brief encounter with Michael Jackson at the property the week before, which fits its larger-than-life lore.

Once the Mirage opened it was clear that its entertainment and non-gaming amenities set it apart. The legendary German illusionists Siegfried and Roy began their residency at the casino on 1 February 1990. For more than a decade, the show was said to have generated more than $40 million per year. The Cirque du Soleil LOVE show debuted in mid-2006 and quickly became a Las Vegas staple.

Siegfried & Roy with their new baby tiger cubs in 2003. Their magical bond with majestic white tigers captivated hearts worldwide for decades.

January 31, 2003 pic.twitter.com/vh6uK5XnaO

— The Mirage (@TheMirageLV) July 9, 2024

In his keynote speech at the Global Gaming Expo in 2014, Wynn asserted that the Mirage’s emphasis on non-gaming offerings paid off.

“The Mirage won over $500m, the first casino in the history of Nevada,” he said. “What was interesting about that was that the Mirage had $600m in non-gaming revenue and at no time did its gaming revenue exceed its non-gaming revenue.”

The Mirage and its holding company Mirage Resorts were eventually sold to MGM for $6.4bn in 2000, followed by Hard Rock’s purchase of its operations in late 2021.

Undeniable influence

According to figures arranged by Lovat for GGB, the casino had a tangible impact on Las Vegas.

In 1988, prior to its opening, the city’s room inventory was just over 61,000 – by the turn of the century that had more than doubled to 124,000. During the same span, state gaming revenue also ballooned from $3.1bn to $7.6bn. Air passengers and drivers from California increased 127% and 98%, respectively.

The success of the Mirage kicked off a construction boom. More than a dozen new properties popped up in Las Vegas in the following decade. This includes such mainstays as the Bellagio, MGM Grand, Luxor, Treasure Island, Mandalay Bay, the Venetian and others.

These new properties echoed the ultra-luxury, resort-style ethos that still dominates Las Vegas. Developers have driven construction prices into the stratosphere in attempts to outdo themselves and capture the can’t-miss aura of the Mirage.

The most recently opened Strip casinos – the Fontainebleau Las Vegas in 2023 and Resorts World Las Vegas in 2019 – cost $3.7bn and $4.3bn, respectively.

The times, they are a-changin’

The closing of the Mirage is bittersweet for locals and tourists alike. But it is also indicative of the ultimate Las Vegas trend: nothing survives forever.

The competition is too steep and the costs are too high in the city to avoid evolution and constant transformation. Each property must constantly reinvent itself in the hopes of drawing new crowds and new dollars. The remnants of generations past are often imploded and trodden over with new developments, like the gambler’s version of Percy Shelley’s Ozymandias.

Even Wynn, the man behind the iconic resort, is no longer a part of Las Vegas.

In 2018, damning sexual harassment claims reported by the Wall Street Journal forced the billionaire to step down from Wynn Resorts. Shortly after, he also sold off his 12% stake. Regulators in Nevada and Massachusetts fined the company more than $50m combined for Wynn’s conduct. His name was removed from Encore Boston Harbor to avoid association.

In July 2023, Wynn personally agreed to a $10m settlement with Nevada regulators. He also agreed to never again return to the state’s gaming industry. The 82-year-old, who has denied all claims, now lives a reclusive life in Florida.