A lot of what I present in this blog are side issues, or side items. Sometimes non-items (such as my night at The Riviera).
Everyone reports the obvious, (such as The Stardust was imploded). While I did cover that, I also covered the dust storm which followed.
So, like The West Wing, which presented the five minutes before and after The President "goes on" this blog often covers the less seen moments. I am usually not interested in presenting postcard perfect shots of the main view of (insert name of hotel). I have them, but so does everyone else.
This preamble brings me to the accompanying photo which is of people waiting on line a few hours before Wynn opened in 2005. Tonight, this photo will be two years old, and so will Wynn.
As the Wynn garage was not open, people parked everywhere else nearby; (Stardust, Frontier, etc). There were two lines on Las Vegas Boulevard. The south line extended to near where Palazzo is now; and the north line was out of sight. Across the street, crowds sat on the steps of The Fashion Show Mall.
The event of the opening was hyped a lot, but ultimately it was just an opening. At midnight the Wynn sign counted down, and when it reached 1, it said "we're open."
We're open?
Sort of like having thousands of people pay to watch a sold out boxing match on closed-circuit in an arena's annex, and then wheeling out a 13 inch black and white. Can you see okay in the back row?
The lines moved very slowly. I waited across the street for almost two hours, until the line was small enough that I crossed LVB and minutes later entered Wynn for the first time. It was beautiful and clean and new. But not magical. I don't know what I was expecting. I was open to surprises, but none were there.
The hype in the lead-up to the opening was so strong that anything would have been appreciated. Maybe even just a cheap pen that said Wynn Grand Opening. Or an informative brochure from one of the beautiful greeters. After waiting as long as some people did to get in, I'm sure an oreo would have been appreciated.
Most places were closed. We could walk around, and see the closed places, but really only the gaming was going on.
A lot of people like Wynn. And I do not doubt that the experience of staying there, or clubbing, or whatever, is very good. My comments here are limited to the actual opening event. It was a let down.
It was the reverse of what went on with The Stardust implosion. With the event of The Stardust implosion, we were undersold and overdelivered. With the event of the grand opening of Wynn, we were oversold and underdelivered.
The best I can say about the grand opening is that the event was incredibly hyped, the place was beautiful, yet most of it closed, and nothing special was done.
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