One of the hotel towers at the former Bally’s is getting an overhaul and will be integrated into Paris Las Vegas. One of the enhancements will be balconies, and they’re already being built. Balconies in Las Vegas hotels are largely a thing of the past, thanks to gravity. Don’t make it awkward, that’s our job. When these newly-balconied rooms open at Paris, they are going to make bank. The new Paris tower will definitely be kiki-friendly, assuming people still use that term. The switch of the Jubilee tower (Bally’s, now Horseshoe) to the Versailles tower (Paris) is taking its sweet time, especi ..read more

A longtime downtown Las Vegas event, the Life is Beautiful music festival, is set to move locations this year. We’ve confirmed a rumor first shared by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Yes, we’re as surprised to be writing those words as you are to be reading them. The usual procedure is we break the news, the Review-Journal confirms it and reports it without attribution. You don’t really care about any of this, but it’s just so rare the Review-Journal breaks news, we felt it was worth mentioning. We’re just so condescendingly proud of them. Anyway, Life is Beautiful is likely to stay downtown. Th ..read more

We never quite knew what to make of Lost Spirits Distillery at Area 15, which may have been part of the problem. The venue, which included the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea restaurant as well as an immersive circus-type-thingy, will close April 29, 2024. The culprit? Poor management. Sorry, officially? The company says it can’t “claw its way” out of the “immense debt accumulated in recent years,” presumably because of the pesky pandemic. This is not Lost Spirits Distillery. There are fish in the lights! Bryan Davis of Lost Spirits Distillery says the venue welcomed 250,000 guests and served up ..read more

Resorts World held its annual ladybug release on April 10, 2024. This is the third annual release of the adorable pest-slayers. We should probably address this up front: We understand “ladybug” may be triggering to some, but that’s what they’re called. “Personbugs” is clumsy, so we’re going to stick with the traditional name despite the risk of cancellation. Anyway, we mostly took photos of the ladybug release as an excuse to talk about depth of field, but we might accidentally talk about the Resorts World event as well. Ladybugs, cuddly yet horrifying. See, in the realm of photography, the ph ..read more

The fact the Las Vegas conversation is so active and passionate online is both a blessing and a curse. In this case, it’s just confusing. The Las Vegas Monorail derailed the conversation for roughly 24 hours as a flurry of Twitter posts and news stories grappled with a long-standing question: What’s happening with the monorail? We got to the bottom of this weird affair. Or possibly caused it. Not that we have to make everything about us, probably. Yes, we have photos of the real Las Vegas Monorail, sometimes referred to as “elevated rail.” Boring. Fun fact: Elevated Rail was the name of our ba ..read more

Silver Strike slots have a cult following, and fans of the machine report experiencing heart palpitations upon discovering the machines been removed from the casino floor at downtown’s Four Queens. Four Queens is one of just two casinos (the other is Plaza) in Las Vegas with the slot that dispenses collectible tokens. The good news is Four Queens will bring back the Silver Strike machines, although their return is veiled in secrecy. If you don’t know what Silver Strike is, you may not be Vegas enough. If you thought we were kidding about Silver Strike machines having a cult following, please r ..read more

A beloved Cirque du Soleil show, “Love,” has announced a closing date at Mirage. We knew the end was near for “Love,” now we know just how near. The show’s last performance takes place on July 7, 2024. Mirage is becoming Hard Rock Las Vegas, and the closure of “Love” is just the beginning of a resort-wide overhaul. “Love” is the Ringo of Las Vegas Cirque shows. “Love” opened in 2006, and wasn’t our favorite Cirque show, but the people who love it really, really love it. The show features the music of The Beatles. For our fellow youths, The Beatles were like the Taylor Swift of the 1960s. “Love ..read more

It’s a casino trend that could affect your financial wellbeing, so we’re all over it. Some casinos are discreetly shortening the window of time before a TITO (ticket in, ticket out) voucher can be cashed. If your slot ticket expires, you could be SOL, and that would be FUBAR as a reminder of your Las Vegas YOLO experience. In human English, you need to pay attention to TITO voucher expiration dates! Don’t be frustrated, A.I. gambler. You serve an illustrative purpose only. Traditionally, gamblers have been given 90 to 180 days (about six months) to redeem their slot tickets. These expiration d ..read more

Particle Ink, a thing we don’t entirely understand, opens at Luxor on April 20, 2024. The “mind-bending trip into the 2.5th dimension” previously happened in downtown’s Art District, under the name “Particle Ink: Speed of Dark.” People who saw it said they enjoyed it. Now, it’s “Particle Ink: House of Shattered Prisms.” If it’s one thing Luxor is known for, it’s artsy experiences! Let’s learn more, shan’t we? On the bright side, shattered prisms are only three years of bad luck. For our fellow youths, mirrors are bad luck for seven years. You know, like an iPhone screen. We were the first to s ..read more

Our friends at Fontainebleau are making some changes to their loyalty club. Shocker, not in a good way. The struggling but drop-dead gorgeous resort sent Fontainebleau Rewards members an e-mail that started with the phrase, “For added simplicity and transparency…” It’s well known anything that follows that phrase tends to be bad news. For example, “For added simplicity and transparency, while you only have a tumor in one testicle, we’re removing both, just to be on the safe side.” Genus: Opuntia snarkycium. Anyway, here’s the rest of the message from Fontainebleau: “For added simplicity and tr ..read more