Biggest Vegas Stories of 2011: A Year End, Traffic Baiting List

We're nearly two weeks into the new year... and since we're deep into the January doldrums, blogs, magazines, newspapers, and new aggregation sites are still putting together best of 2011 lists in shameless attempts to grab some extra traffic. And since I am by no means above shameless stunts, here's my list of the top Las Vegas stories in 2011:


The Cosmopolitan Opens for Business

The Cosmo opened at the tail end of 2010, technically, but really 2011 was the first year that the mega-expensive, mid-Strip property had to shine. The resort was designed to attract an all new demographic to Las Vegas, which the powers that be described as the "curious class." Many were confused by exactly what the demo was supposed to be, but the term basically translated to the rich young LA  elite looking for something a little different... essentially the people who party at The Standard Hotel locations in Downtown LA or on The Sunset Strip. And it worked, in a way... the rooms at The Cosmo are quite often filled with young partygoers, and the sexy Chandelier Bar has become one of the hippest new watering holes in town. The resort has done a good job of booking hip indie rockers, from all time icons like Morrissey (headlining in the main theater) to up and coming buzz bands like Best Coast and Fitz and the Tantrums (rocking out on the more intimate Book and Stage) played the resort last year, while a slew of Pitchfork approved acts like The Shins, Justice, The Rapture, and Foster the People are on the books to perform there in upcoming months. The Cosmo also has one of the hottest nightclubs in town, The Marquee, which ushered in the beginning of 2011 with performances by Jay Z and Coldplay. While all of this may make The Cosmo sound like a runaway success, The Resort is actually losing money because gambling revenues are not strong... and despite all of The Cosmo's outside the box thinking, the Vegas economy is still fueled by gambling. Which puts the owners of The Cosmo in the awkward position of successfully attracting a new demographic to Las Vegas... only to find out that the "Curious Class" isn't all that curious about the thing that most defines Las Vegas.


Downtown Draws the Hipster Elite
Downtown Las Vegas is not as cool as Austin, Portland, Silverlake, or Williamsburg (Williamsburg is dead anyway at this point, but that's another story), but the neighborhood is becoming more and more of a hipster enclave... which is a pretty amazing development, considering that Vegas was built on glittering consumer palaces. But indie alty artsty types have found a home in Sin City around Fremont Street, where some of the coolest bars in town are located, from The Griffin (a super chill hipster hang with a great jukebox) to Frankie's Tiki Room (kitschy old fashioned fun) to The Beauty Bar (the hipster dance party center of Vegas) to Insert Coins (a video game lounge designed for discerning geeks). The ever expanding arts and music First Fridays events take place all over Downtown and has become a mandatory event for the artsiest Vegas citizens, while the best food trucks in town often post up near Fremont Street. Downtown has been growing in hipster cred for years, but 2011 was the year when Downtown cohered into a formidable mecca for indie scene dwellers... even if its in the shadow of the super mainstream Vegas Strip.



The Economy Continues to Pound Sin City
This is the inescapable fact of Las Vegas these days. While the economy as a whole seems to be on the (very slow) mend, Vegas has been hit hard and 2011 was no better. Before the economy crashed in 2008, there seemed to be no end in sight for the Las Vegas bubble, as more and more multi-billion dollar mega-resorts were replacing classic casinos, and no matter how many new rooms became available in new hotels, the town was almost always at capacity. Expensive restaurants were overbooked and girls in too shirt-skirts waited in long lines outside even the lamest clubs. People were gambling their money away and the rest of the city beyond the tourist mecca area was expanding quickly as more and more people started to move to the quickly growing metropolis. But then everything crashed like a house of cards, or at least like a hacky metaphor. Construction halted on many of those aforementioned multi-billion dollar mega resorts, as giant empty lots sit where proud old Rat Pack era haunts once stood. The Cosmo did open, but only after a European bank took over its staggering debt. Hotel prices swing wildly from weekend to weekend, as resorts are often desperate to attract visitors (you can stay at The Wynn for about $100 a night if you book the right weekend, an astoundingly low rate for such a luxurious and expensive boutique hotel) and shows from iconic entertainers and restaurants from celebrity chefs were forced to shutter. The Strip itself feels strangely empty on many Saturday nights, as the bustling crowds of the midd 00's have thinned drastically. All is not lost in Vegas as the economy slowly recovers and the smartest Casino bosses will continue to innovate and succeed with the cards they've been dealt, but for now some of the glamor of the halcyon days of Sin City feels strangely absent. But Vegas is a town famous for reinventing itself every decade (remember that the 90's were all about trying to attract families and turn Vegas into Disneyland with gambling and liberal open container laws before things shifted to the more honest and direct "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" philosophy that launched a decade defined by the kind of debauchery and bad behavior celebrated in The Hangover), so maybe 2012 will be the year Vegas is reborn again, like a glorious Phoenix rising from the ashes.

Or the world will end. Either way. 

The Cosmopolitan: A Review

I've been looking forward to the opening of The Cosmo since their ad debuted a few months ago. The slick and artsy clip promised to deliver "just the right amount of wrong," in a world of pants-less bellboys, androgynous heroin-chic models, randy grannies and incongruous fluffy kitties, puppies, chicks and bunnies. I'm not gonna lie; I made fun of the ad, but it certainly had me intrigued.

Would the place prove to be a hedonistic Dave Lachapelle photograph come to life? A Vegas version of The Standard? An offbeat playground for indie kids who shop at American Apparel, LOLed at the Who is Arcade Fire meme, and find the Ed Hardy element of Sin City a bit off-putting? I hoped that it would prove to be, at minimum, a Vegas resort with a slightly better playlist (and less Black Eyed Peas) piping through the stereo system.

Or would the artsy ad, like many a broken promise of revolutions in casino design, turn out to be nothing but hype ?

The Cosmopolitan, it turns out, delivers the cool factor in spades... but it certainly hasn't re-invented the wheel (which I'm still waiting for some forward thinker to do in a literal sense... or maybe I'm the only one who finds round wheels to be kind of played out at this point).

One thing is for sure: The Cosmo sure is shiny. This place sparkles, and it's not just because it's the latest resort to open on The Strip; the whole thing glitters like a diamond, and that seems to be the point. One of the bars is even located inside a massive chandelier. While that may sound kind of stupid, it's also really pretty. Look upon the shiny lights with wonder and glee. Look upon them!

Offsetting the glimmering shine of the place is the pretty cool art pieces you can find all over the place, including spots where digital art is projected on walls. Okay, I'll give em that... that's pretty cool.

The place also picks up some indie cred for the very cool bands that have played free shows in their Book and Stage, including buzzy acts like Best Coast, Fitz and the Tantrums, Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Just as I'd hoped, their music selection is a bit cooler than the typical Vegas resort soundtrack (though you're just not gonna be able to totally avoid hearing LMFAO and Lil' John's "Shots"... this is still Vegas, afterall).

The Cosmo also features some very unique shops that are worth browsing. U*Tique is described as the "world's first fully automated luxury store," and feels like a high end vending machine from far in the future (or at least like something they've had in Tokyo for years). However you want to describe it, when you order an item a cute little robot deposits it safely into your hands... so obviously I love it. And Droog is the place all you design nerds out there hoped The Cosmo would feature, selling one of a kind items like a chair made of 15 layers of rags (which you can add your own discarded old clothes to and create memories you can sit on) and a tree-trunk bench (which is literally a tree trunk with chair-backs built into it and was designed by a guy named Jurgen Bey, making it ten times more awesome). All the stuff they sold was way, way, way out of my price range... but it was kind of cool to look at.

Rooms are pretty swank and filled with the latest tech, and I had a phenomenal view of The Strip and the adjacent CityCenter towers (which seem more impressive to me every time I'm in town after my initial feeling that the place felt like an airport with no airplanes). I had to wait a little longer to check in than I would have typically liked, but hey... they just opened and still have some bugs to work out. If only they knew who I was, with my rampant influence all over the blog-world, then I would have been whisked quickly to my room, comped a few drinks and treated with the proper respect! But alas, my rampant influence only exists in my mind and I was treated just like the rest of the unwashed masses (as I deserved to be).

I tried to get in to Marquee, the shiny new multi-leveled nightlife centerpiece of the shiny new resort, but the wait was atrocious and the crowd looked... like any other Vegas crowd, only bigger. Sure, I spied a few sensitive dudes with Colin Meloy glasses and a couple girls who could have been stand-ins on a Tegan and Sara video shoot waiting in line, but there was basically the same ratio of Affliction T-Shirt wearing meat-heads in line as at any other Sin City club. The place was so packed with revelers and wanna-be revelers that people were still waiting in line to get in at 5 AM. Even I'm ready to stop partying and turn it in for the night by 5 AM! But I salute the Jersey Shore rejects who toughed it out so they could say they were there, bro.

Overall, I'd say the resort is very cool and I like what they're going for, but that confounded ad had me expecting something a little more designy, funky and unique. What we have instead is a younger spin on chic, high end luxury. Perhaps it's not hipsters the resort is targeting in their ads, but socialites and young starlets with money to burn and aspirations of artsy coolness? Because as much as the place desperately wants to be judged as cool by unemployed screenwriters, bassists and graphic designers, those people are unemployed and can't afford to prop up a multi-billion dollar Vegas resort. For now, you're still more likely to find those people downing Ass-Juice shots and Bacon Martinis at The Double Down or trying to make out with each other at The Griffin or Beauty Bar in Downtown, then trying to forget the sting of hookup failure by trying their luck at table games with lower limits.

Only time will tell if The Cosmo grows into a more buzzed-about resort with a hip and atypical Vegas clientele that come out to Vegas in order to see of-the-moment bands play there instead of at The Echo in LA, or if it will devolve into just another place for sorority girls to stumble through drunkenly. It may be Vegas, but I'm not ready to place a bet either way.