The Mirage is closing its doors on Wednesday, 17 July. It will be transformed into the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino by 2027. It was arguably the most important property in Las Vegas history. The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino will be rebranded as the Mirage by 2027.
The property hosted farewell ceremonies to celebrate its 34 years of existence. Gift shops are stocked with souvenirs commemorating the Mirage. As guests shared their memories of the resort, they took many selfies.
The payout of $1,6m ($1,47, EUR 1,24) in progressive jackpots has been a popular housekeeping practice. The state regulations require that the money in these progressive jackpots be paid before a house is closed.
The casino floor was crowded in the weeks leading up to the closing. The players fought for the chance to win hourly prizes, sometimes pushing each other. Total prize money of $1.6m was divided between $1.2m from slot machines and $400k from table games.
The prizes are awarded hourly. The first day of the competition, 9-11th July, saw a daily prize pool of $200,000, then $250,000, 12-13th July, and finally $100,000 on 16th July.
The Cirque du Soleil “The Beatles Love” show ended on 7 July. According to local television station KSNV, the show has welcomed over 11 million visitors in its 18 year residency.
The last hotel night for guests was Sunday night (14th July). The official closing ceremony begins at 9 am on Wednesday. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the closing ceremony will pay tribute to 140 workers who have worked for the Mirage over the past 34 years. At 11 am, the property will be officially closed.
Hard Rock renovates and rebrands
The property will undergo a complete renovation over the next three-year period. It will then reappear as Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. The new Hard Rock Casino has not yet set an opening date.
The original plan was to keep the building open while renovations took place. Officials decided, however, that the impact of a gradual closure on the customer experience would be so great that the best option was to shut the property down completely.
Hard Rock’s 700-foot-tall guitar-shaped tower will replace the Mirage’s volcano. This tower, which will have 600 rooms spread over 37 floors, is a staple of the Hard Rock brand. In addition to renovations, a new theater with 5,000 seats and new restaurants will be constructed.
Hard Rock purchased the Mirage operations from MGM Resorts International in December 2021 for $1,08bn. VICI Properties, a real estate trust, owns the land.
Hard Rock remains the only Strip casino owned by a tribe, as it is owned and operated by the Seminole Tribe of Florida. The casino is awaiting a bright future but its history will not soon be forgotten.
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Casino industry professionals tend to be divided on most issues, but there is no doubt that the Mirage has been one of the most important casinos in Las Vegas history. It was a gamble that started off as a huge success.
Las Vegas stagnated in the 1980s. Since the 1973 opening of the MGM Grand, there had not been any new construction projects along the Strip. A devastating fire struck the property on 21st November 1980. The fire killed 87 people and tarnished the image of the city.
Casinos had been legalised in Atlantic City, and Indian gambling had taken off in California. Labor relations in the locality were tense, particularly after an ugly citywide strike that took place in 1984. This strike involved 17,000 Culinary Union Members from 32 Casinos. It lasted for 67 days.
Steve Wynn was a fresh face with a vision of what a resort should look like. Wynn, along with his partner Michael Milken, raised over $500m out of $620m required for the Mirage project.
The construction of the Mirage began in 1987. Mirage’s design and construction stories show how meticulously it was done.
A marvel of architecture
It was the largest hotel in the world with 3,044 bedrooms at that time. Arte Nathan and Andrew Klebanow, gaming consultants, wrote for Global Gaming Business in 2021 that the Mirage’s architecture was a model for future large-scale projects.
The Y-shaped tower with 24-elevator core reduced the distance that guests had to walk from their rooms to their rooms, they stated. This design is now found in many integrated resorts around the globe.
This property featured several features that helped staff serve guests better, such as six elevators for staff only and transit corridors wider than usual. The property also featured a modern baggage system that was inspired by the technology used at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
Nathan and Klebanow write that “Bellmen received an alert as soon as the guest entered his key card and then delivered luggage to their room.” Delivery times were tracked electronically so that service standards could also be assessed.
Get away from the crowds
Mirage was designed around a tropical paradise motif. Wynn made this point by moving his resort away from the street, in order to make it a place that people would want to visit and not stumble across. Don Brinkerhoff of Lifescapes International was enlisted to assist with tropical landscaping.
Brinkerhoff said in 2019, for an article on GGB’s 30th anniversary written by Oliver Lovat, “Steve wanted us to build an oasis in a desert that was dry and arid.”
DeRuyter B. Butler, Wynn Design and Development’s Executive Vice-President, described in a similar article how his team wanted to appeal to the “all the senses” by including white water, lights that mimicked firelight and intentional smells.
He claimed that “we were the first operators to smell our property.” The Mirage smelled like a pina colada and evoked an exotic setting.
Who could forget about the volcano that became a tourist attraction in its own right, thanks to timed explosions? The idea was to make guests feel like they had already received something free upon arrival.
Even before Hard Rock announced its plans, an online petition to save this beloved landmark was launched. The petition currently has over 11,000 signatures.
The legendary Run
The Mirage was opened on 22 November 1989. The opening attracted tens and thousands of people, including those still working in the entertainment industry.
Bill Hornbuckle, CEO of MGM Resorts in 2019, told GGB: “I still remember it like yesterday.” The barriers were taken down and a large crowd, 25,000 strong, began to run up the two sides of the driveway through the front entrance. I had no choice but to leap over the desk!
Howard Stutz, a veteran gaming journalist who has covered many openings for The Review-Journal. In his Indy Gaming Newsletter earlier this month, he said that the event had “brought international and national attention to Wynn, Las Vegas, and the Wynn Resort.”
The Mirage’s entertainment amenities and other non-gaming features set it apart. On 1 February 1990, the legendary German illusionists Siegfried & Roy started their residency in the casino. The show generated over $40 million in revenue per year for more than 10 years. Cirque du Soleil LOVE debuted mid-2006, and became an instant Las Vegas favorite.
Wynn said that Mirage’s focus on non-gaming options paid off in his 2014 keynote address at the Global Gaming Expo.
He said, “The Mirage was the first Nevada casino to win over $500m. What was fascinating about this was the Mirage’s $600m non-gaming revenues. At no point did gaming revenue surpass non-gaming income.
Hard Rock purchased the Mirage’s operations at the end of 2021. MGM bought Mirage Resorts and The Mirage for $6.4bn.
Undeniable influence
Lovat arranged figures for GGB that showed the casino’s tangible influence on Las Vegas.
The city had just 61,000 rooms in 1988 before its opening. By 2000 that number was doubled, to 124,000. In the same time period, gaming revenues in California also grew from $3.1 billion to $7.6 billion. The number of air passengers from California and the number of drivers who came to California both increased by 127% and 98 %, respectively.
A construction boom was sparked by the success of The Mirage. In the decade that followed, more than a dozen properties were built in Las Vegas. The Bellagio is one of the most popular properties in Las Vegas.
The new developments echo the resort style, ultra-luxury ethos which still reigns in Las Vegas. In an attempt to compete with the Mirage, developers have pushed construction costs into the stratosphere.
Costs of the two most recent Strip casinos, Fontainebleau Las Vegas 2023 and Resorts World Las Vegas 2019, are $3.7bn each.
They are changing times
It is bittersweet news for both locals and visitors. It is also an indication of Las Vegas’s ultimate trend: Nothing lasts forever.
In the big city, the competition and costs are just too great to ignore constant change and evolution. Every property has to reinvent itself constantly in order to attract new customers and dollars. As a result, the remnants of previous generations are often trampled over by new developments. This is like Percy Shelley ‘s Ozymandias .
Las Vegas is now without Wynn. The man who created the famous resort.
The Wall Street Journal published a series of damning allegations about sexual harassment in 2018. This forced Wynn Resorts to sack the billionaire. He sold his remaining 12% of the company shortly after. The company was fined more than $50,000,000 by regulators in Massachusetts and Nevada for Wynn’s behavior. To avoid any association, his name was taken off Encore Boston Harbor.
Wynn agreed personally to settle with Nevada regulators for $10 million in July 2023. Also, he agreed never to return to Nevada’s gambling industry. He now leads a secluded life in Florida, despite denying all allegations.
