#VegasHalloween 2021 -- day 3, part 2

Halloween 2021 was not what I expected. 

It was my seventh #VegasHalloween in 11 years, and my plan, typically, is to spend the evening downtown. 

In 2019 my life partner really wanted to see Lady Gaga on Halloween Night. She didn't want to pay $400 per ticket, and that was lowest priced ticket days before the show, if you were shopping the online ticket resale sites. 

Fearing a major overhaul was in the works at the dirty circus, we stopped at Circus Circus the day before  Halloween, in the middle of the afternoon. I hadn't seen the inside of that joint in years, and wanted to see it in its vintage glory, in case the recent sale of the property was soon to bring a whitewashing of the décor. 

Nobody heaps praise on Circus Circus. It's old, it's kitschy and it's not the least bit glamourous. But so many of us bemoan the loss of casino theming, it would be a shame to ever lose this Vegas relic.

A view from outside the dirty circus on Oct. 30, 2019. This view is going to change, one of these years. Allegedly change is coming in two years. Yeah, we'll see.

While walking around, we found a ticket booth selling show tickets. I knew it was a waste of time to price check what they had, but my life partner insisted. Much to our shock, we found tickets at approximately $135 each. I had been watching ticket prices drop a little bit from day to day, but nobody was dumping them that cheap a full day before showtime. Sure, they were near the top of the theater, which ain't great, but I've seen much worse seats. It's not the hockey arena we were visiting, after all. It was a ticket in, and we had no regrets. 

My 2019 cellphone wasn't going to get a good pic of the Lady on stage, or flying through the air of a dark theater, but I got a pic of the giant video display showcasing her piano prowess during my Halloween 2019 concert. My first Gaga concert, and probably the last. I'm cheap. 

Flash forward two years, and the three sisters are talking about going to Lady Gaga on Oct. 30. We saw the "Enigma" show, a corny production with a simple story that unfolds as Gaga performs the hits. Last month, she was doing the jazz and piano show she likes to do, and the sisters wanted to see it. I didn't need to go. Count me out. 

They didn't go to the show on Saturday, Oct. 30, because midway through the week the bride-to-be decided she wanted to have a dinner gathering for the 18 of us there in Vegas for the wedding. That killed any plans for the sisters to see Gaga. 

Given there was no formal group gathering happening on Halloween night, the sisters started talking about going to see Gaga that Sunday night. I learned about this on Sunday afternoon, after the wedding, while we were dining at Saltgrass. 

Somewhere in the discussion it went from a party of 3 to 4. The bride's father's sister became part of the plan. (She's not an aunt to the sisters, who are cousins to the bride. Let's leave it at that.) 

So after changing clothes at the Plaza, I headed downstairs, knowing that I'd eventually be hitting the road and dropping off a group of concertgoers at Park MGM. It was just before kickoff of  the NFL's Sunday night football game, and a World Series game 5. I wanted to place small wagers on each. I wanted to wager on the Atlanta Braves to win, and I wanted to wager on Dallas to beat Minnesota. 

I got there in the final seconds of the wagering for baseball, and as I was about to place a wager, it went off the board. Oops. So then I wagered on the NFL game. I wagered $25 on the visiting Dallas Cowboys. 

The moment I put my wallet in my pocket and turned around to head out of the sports book I heard the NFL pregame announcement. The Dallas starting quarterback was not playing, and a backup with no experience was starting the game. Dallas was a 5-point underdog, but suddenly this looked like an easy victory for Minnesota. Just my luck. 

At Circa I watched part of the game in the free seats in the sports book with the bride and groom, while other family members milled about at the Mega Bar. (It's a big bar in a huge casino. I don't know why that's so amazing.) As 7 p.m. approached, it was time to head to the concert. 

We drove over to Caesars Palace to pick up the bride's aunt, which I thought would be a nightmare, but we got lucky. Weaving in and out of Caesars entryway is a chore right now, thanks to construction, but we succeeded. Getting into the Park MGM area to drop off the foursome wasn't much of a challenge either. So far, so good. 

By the way, they had slightly better seats in the balcony than we had two years ago, and the tickets cost them about $180 each that afternoon via whichever ticket site they used. 

My options: Go back downtown, only to head back three hours later to pick them up, or find somewhere else to go. For those who think that they should have taken a cab back after the show, the sisters were splitting the rental fee for the SUV between them. All it cost me was gas money and my driving service when needed during the weekend. Fair trade in my world. And even without the fair trade, you put others before yourself sometimes. This was one of those times. 

Given every trip to Vegas for more than a decade has included a visit to the Pinball Hall of Fame, and I hadn't been there on this trip, and was resigned to the idea I wasn't going for the first time in many years, Lady Gaga gave me a convenient excuse to drop in. I had been to the latest incarnation on the south end of the strip in June, twice, so I knew what I was getting. It was a quick jaunt on the backroads to loop around Mandalay Bay and pull into the lot. 

I had a nice chat with a local couple, who had to be in their 70s. They were just getting in their car, and I said hello. We talked for five minutes. There they were, on Halloween night, getting out and enjoying pinball together in Vegas. Warmed my heart. 

Inside it was not very busy. It was Halloween night, plenty of people had other plans. I saw proprietor Tim Arnold walking around, something that's not uncommon. I've talked to him before, but he doesn't know me enough to remember me. But I said hello and asked how late he was open. He said that he's still maintaining reduced hours as a result of the pandemic, so he was closing at 9 p.m.

That gave me an hour to look around, see what I didn't recognize, play a few old favorites and head for the door. The first game I played was Theatre of Magic, a game I don't to play regularly back in Minnesota, mostly because I don't go to a lot of places to play pinball on a regular basis these days. I won three free games on top of the game I paid 75 cents to play, and chewed up a bunch of time on that machine alone. 

I played this machine first.

By the time an hour had passed, I had spent less than $3, and played plenty of pinball for that money. Almost criminal. My final game of the night, an Elvira-themed machine, is one of three Elvira machines that has been licensed over the decades. This one was the second game to feature Cassandra, and was manufactured in 1996.

I played this last. Seemed like an appropriate final game on Halloween. (Cell phone photography of pinball machines is not my strong suit.)

So it's 9 p.m. on Halloween, and I'm back in the parking lot. Where do I go from there? I contemplated the Orleans, a place I have stayed many times and typically visit when I don't stay there. Instead I chose to go check out a locals bar I read about, courtesy of one of the local TV stations, The Sand Dollar, a "lounge" along Spring Mountain Road. 

I'm not sure the Halloween makeover of a longtime bar warranted news coverage by one of the TV stations, but that's how I learned about it. I had considered stopping in on Friday afternoon for one drink, but was too tired and not in the mood. 

So there I was, shortly after 9 p.m., heading into the bar. I didn't plan an elaborate Halloween costume this year, but I had this cheesy manufactured costume I bought a few years ago. Basically you wear it over your normal clothing and you're supposed to look like you're at the podium, bidding on a The Price is Right showcase. It was a perfect, simple costume for a theme party a few years ago, and it was a simple, easy way to play along with Halloween without going to a lot of effort. I had no idea how grateful I was going to be for not planning an elaborate costume this year. 

Thank you, Amazon, for providing this stock image of my costume. The microphone looks more phallic than the picture suggests. People will remind you of that.

I threw on the costume and headed inside. The place was not packed, but there was a decent crowd assembled, most donning some sort of costume. This place ain't fancy, and it's a venue for live music. I knew that much going in. 

The entire place was decorated, but I wouldn't call it amazing. They had plenty of fake cobwebs across the ceiling, and lots of little decorative touches through the bar. Cute, but not jaw dropping. I wouldn't recommend going there just to see the Halloween makeover. I took a simple picture of the pool table area when nobody was in that corner, and a picture of the decorated entryway to the place. I didn't want to look like a tourist, taking pics of every decorative accent in the building, and it wasn't that amazing, anyway.

Again, cell phone limitations in play. But you get the idea. 

The nifty entryway into The Sand Dollar.

These were the only Sand Dollar patrons in costume I took a picture of. Somebody else had asked them to pose for a picture first. That was my cue to follow suit. 

The bar had Halloween-themed cocktails, but I ordered a simple cocktail to start. A band was warming up, so I was optimistic the music would start any minute. I wasn't in the mood to try to make chit chat with anyone, so I was content to stand and enjoy the music. I found spot to stand that wasn't in anyone's way, and waited seemingly forever for the music to start. Turns out the band didn't play until 10 p.m.

So the music finally starts playing. I figure the band is going to play cover tunes, and given it was Halloween, there would be something, anything, referencing the fact it was Oct. 31. 

My expectations were a little low. The six-piece band began with an instrumental tune. And after several minutes, they were still going strong. After 25 minutes it sounded like their opening jam was about to end. And then it picked back up again, and continued until 10:50, at which point they ended the jam and took a break. 

It was quite a surprise, and very entertaining. Not what I was expecting, but very enjoyable. There was no introduction or sign telling me what band it was, but my after-the-fact research tells me it was Überschall, an improv band that is composed of past and present musicians performing for the Blue Man Group, evidently. 

The Sand Dollar's Halloween decor wasn't worth the price of admission, (there was none,) but if you enjoy an improv band featuring three drummers, two guitars and a keyboard player, you'd be entertained by Überschall. They play at the Double Down Saloon periodically, it appears.

Lady Gaga's show lasts about 2-1/2 hours, I was told, and I assumed she wouldn't start at 8 p.m. sharp, so I expected to be getting a "show's over" text by 11 p.m.

What I didn't expect was to run into somebody I know at the Sand Dollar. 

Toward the end of the Überschall set, a guy approached the area where I was standing. He looked familiar to me, based upon his profile. But it's dark, there's music playing and I assumed there was no chance I knew this guy. A few minutes later the music ends, the guy turns around to head to another area of the bar, and looks at me, as if he recognizes me. 

My general rule: When you see somebody you don't immediately recognize, but are so sure it's somebody you know and haven't seen in a long time, you're probably right. 

I texted my friend Sam, who is a well-known scribe in Vegas, asking where he was at the moment, and if it was a lounge. I received a generic "LOL" reply, and I wondered if that was his way of telling me he was doing something far more interesting on Halloween night. Sure enough, that was Sam, and seconds later he walked up to me, asking why I what I was doing at the lounge. 

Sam knows I'm a tourist, and we first met in 2015. I have read his work for years, and enjoy much of what he writes. When I was in town this past summer, I interviewed him for an episode of my non-Vegas podcast. It was the second time we had met in six years. And I certainly didn't expect that Friday afternoon we'd cross paths again, if only for a few minutes, barely four months later. 

Sam was simply out and about that night, hitting up a few spots specifically because it was Halloween. He was soon on his way, and I took that as my cue to ready myself for the return trip to Park MGM. 

Sam is on the left, the decaying writer of this blog is on the right.

The return trip was quick and easy, the pick up was no challenge, and we dumped the aunt off on the Flamingo Road sidewalk alongside Caesars rather than drive her into the property. I offered to pull into that side entrance area on Flamingo that accesses one of the towers, but she wanted to walk around to the front of the property, so she did. And off we went to downtown. 

I dropped the sisters off at Golden Nugget and parked our rental vehicle at the Plaza. 

I grabbed my costume and headed out to Fremont Street moments before midnight in order to gaze at the spectacle that is Halloween in Vegas. Before I ever made it out of the Plaza, I ran into the Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth. I have a special place in my heart for the Macho Man, as he was my costume inspiration in 2016. 

You can find these folks on YouTube, I would later learn. 

I didn't request too many specific photos on Fremont Street. I'd often take pics of folks posing for somebody else, and sometimes that included a random person in the picture. And while I don't avoid pics of the scantily clad women parading about on Halloween, they're usually not my priority. Here's a sample of what I found after midnight. 

I did not tip this street performer for this picture. Shame on me. His balancing act was quite impressive. And yes, he picks up that bottle and uses it as part of his act. 

 

My second Macho Man of the night. I saw one more, but never at a good time to stop him and get a picture. Oh well.

These clowns were creepy, and garnered plenty of attention.

I didn't immediately realize the entire cast of Gilligan's Island was represented by this group. Once I realized they had all seven castaways, I waited nearby until somebody else asked them to gather together for a group photo. Then I grabbed mine. 

A simple costume idea. It would have played well five years ago. It still gets laughs, although Hillary Clinton never went to prison, but plenty of Trump bobos have. 

I asked this guy for his photo. His dedication to a creepy look was outstanding. 

This seemed like a pic worth grabbing at the time.

Bill Cosby's career is forever tarnished, and that likely includes appreciation for the old "Fat Albert" cartoons. Nonetheless, this simple Dumb Donald costume blew me away. I had to ask this guy for a pic.

I ended my evening back at the Plaza, where I bought in for $200 at a table game. It was my one big gamble of the weekend. I didn't win, but I held onto a little and finished my night playing a few bucks through the machines at the bar before going to bed. Another Vegas Halloween, as odd as it was, had come to an end. 

Not drinking much that night and not staying awake until 4 a.m. didn't bother me, I had an afternoon flight home. I typically avoid flying home the day after Halloween, but it made sense to do so for this trip, as my life partner and her sisters were doing so, and this was a bonus trip in my world. Three nights is short by my standards, but I'm so grateful it worked out. 

The final hours in Vegas were uneventful. I checked out of my room, picked up the sisters and drove us to Ellis Island, where we had lunch before heading to the airport. The lunch service was a lot slower than we expected. I'm pretty sure the waitress forgot to put our ticket in for a while, so we waited more than 30 minutes for our food. It didn't appear tables around us were waiting that long. 

I ordered prime rib for lunch given I hadn't had my standard prime rib meal the entire weekend. Fun fact, other than a breakfast bar in my hotel room an hour earlier, I hadn't eaten a meal since Sunday afternoon at Saltgrass. Other than a little candy at the Pinball Hall of Fame, I ate almost nothing until lunch at noon on Monday. That happens to me in Vegas occasionally, and I didn't even think about a meal that entire evening. 

One food pic from my trip, prime rib at Ellis Island. No complaints for less than $20.

I gave myself about two hours to return the rental car and get to my gate for departure. The shuttle buses were slow at the rental center and security screening was super slow on Monday afternoon. A friend who was in town that weekend, but I had not seen, was on the same flight home as I was. She messaged me that it took more than an hour to get through the security screening. I was certain I would miss my flight, but TSA did something to pick up the pace, as the line eventually started moving far more briskly than it had been when I arrived. I was the last ticketed passenger to be seated, and they bumped me up to an exit row. I wasn't the last guy on the plane, there were a few standby passengers hoping and praying they'd get a seat to Minneapolis, as well. I think they did. 

My seventh trip to Vegas for Halloween in 11 years was complete. I wouldn't have been sad had I missed out, at least that was my thought leading up to the trip, but I suspect I'd have regretted not being there come Halloween weekend. 

Oh yeah, those Sunday night sports bets. I missed betting on Atlanta, and Houston went on to win that night, so it would have been my fourth consecutive failed sports bet of the weekend. As for the Minnesota-Dallas NFL game, I regretted betting on Dallas as soon as I walked away from the counter and learned that five-year pro Cooper Rush, who had never started an NFL regular season game in his life, was the Dallas starting quarterback as the Cowboys' regular starting QB, Dak Prescott, was a late scratch. 

I watched some of the first half at Circa and followed the scoring updates on my phone at the Pinball Hall of Fame. It looked like Dallas was going to struggle to score points, but Minnesota failed to light up the scoreboard, as well. Dallas not only covered the 4.5-point spread, but won outright 20-16. I won cash on Sunday night all because I was a minute too late to bet on baseball and because I bet against Minnesota seconds before I learned late breaking info that would have led me to switch my bet. 

When it comes to sports betting, I swear I'm wrong 90% of the time. I need to bet the opposite of my instincts. 

Life downtown was much different circa April 2016

I vaguely remember that night in April 2016, and it wasn't much different than tonight.

It's January 2019. I'm sitting in the same spot I was nearly three years ago. I can't promise, but in late April of 2016 there likely wasn't much snow on the ground outside my Minnesota home. And here I am in the dead of winter nearly three years later, and there are scant traces of snow. It has been a weird winter here in the cold north.

It was a weeknight in 2016 when I was sitting at the computer, later than I should have been, and reading breaking news from the Vital Vegas blog about the sale of downtown properties to the brothers Stevens. I wrote an instant response to that late evening blog post, much to the surprise of the blog's author. (I'll take praise anywhere I can get it.) And, as I'm wont to do, I provided a copy editing recommendation. (That's something only us writers understand.)

It has been nearly three years since news broke that we were losing a couple of tiny grind joints, a dying-on-the-vine casino and a dingy strip club. (That's what everyone tells me. I am proud to say I never saw the interior for myself.) Nearly three years later I'm typing on the same laptop computer about the future of downtown, and sitting in the same seat.

I can pretend to have Vegas insight, but I'm just speculating, along with everyone else. Yet there's one thing I'm confident of, the brothers Stevens are going to hit a home run if they follow through with the plans they've announced earlier this evening.

I'm still unclear why the name makes sense, but the former site of the Las Vegas Club, and other adjacent businesses, will be a new casino resort known as Circa. New rooms, new amenities and lots of uncheap booze will soon occupy the vacant lot at the west end of downtown Vegas. It's probably not for me, but I like it nonetheless.

The basic concept of the new project surprises no one.

You don't build a new property to cater to low rollers, and you don't build a new property downtown that replicates everything already offered in the business district. Therefore you end up with the plans unveiled earlier this evening, a new resort named Circa.

Nothing about this announcement surprises me. As I noted, you don't build a new resort and hope to attract low rollers with simple, cheap rooms and sparse amenities. Given downtown casinos don't have the luxury of grandiose features that their strip counterparts do, building anew allows the brothers Stevens to design a sports book that is unmatched downtown. (It will be the largest anywhere, allegedly.)  I've never sensed that sports books are the most lucrative element of the casino, but they generate a lot of traffic, and one of the keys to success is getting people in the door. Circa will accomplish that.

The elaborate sports book doesn't appeal to me, as I'm not one to spend hours in an area dedicated to wagering on sports. I make an occasional sports bet when I'm in Vegas, but it's a tiny part of my Vegas vacation.

Other major amenities planned for Circa include an elaborate pool and a spa. I suspect both of these will be smashing successes as well.

Neither element is a surprise. It has been known that the elaborate, multi-tiered pool area Circa promises has been on the Stevens radar all along. And why not? I've never understood the appeal of a "day club," but plenty of strip casinos market the hell out of the concept, and the people who favor such an atmosphere are willing to pay plenty for the privilege.

The strip casinos wouldn't bother with turning their pools into day clubs if they didn't generate meaningful cash. Although I've never experienced the preciousness of a day club, I know people drop a lot of cash for the privilege of enjoying a manufactured party in a pool. The concept wouldn't have appealed to me 20 years ago, and surprisingly doesn't appeal to me now. But I sense plenty of people who like the downtown vibe are interested in turning their afternoon in the sun into a raucous, lustful party. And the brothers Stevens are wisely banking on it. When people are willing to pay approximately $180 per case of beer at a fancy pool on the strip, I'd try to get a piece of that action, too.

There's no question the pool scene downtown is lackluster. This brings an element of the strip to downtown Vegas. I don't expect thousands to follow, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a healthy crowd dropping fat stacks of greenbacks on expensive handcrafted cocktails served by the pool. You can't put a price on that!

Like pools, spas are a foreign concept downtown. I get it, most of us who stay downtown aren't looking for the fanciest amenities, and there would be far more options buried within the bowels of the Plaza or the upstairs floors of  El Cortez if the demand was there. (Instead we get Happy Feet on level 2 of ElCo.) But you can't attract a high-end crowd to find its way to your high-end resort if there's nothing for them to dump all that discretionary cash that lines their pockets. A top-notch spa will garner plenty of fans, even if the Golden Nugget is already catering to that clientele.

My biggest disappointment is that I didn't hear anything about a fancy or exclusive showroom. I know we have a few showrooms in Vegas, and they're not exactly hotbeds of entertainment. Nobody seems to have the space to dedicate to a major production the way the strip properties to, and the downtown crowd doesn't seem to be particularly hungry for anything more than a free movie stage. So I can't say I'm not surprised that a major showroom is not part of the announcement. There are places for such shows, and Circa clearly isn't one of them.

So how successful will Circa be? It's no secret Vegas has been taking it on the chin in recent years. Increased resort fees, parking fees on the strip, high-buck bottled domestic beers at fancy casinos less favorable gambling conditions are not helping the city's image. And Circa is not the only project in development at the moment.

But for all the disappointment Vegas delivers with each passing year, nothing is replacing it. People may choose to gamble closer to home more often. And they may choose to visit other cities. But few places are cheap to visit, and for all the ways online commerce has changed the world we live in, virtual vacations are not a thing. People need to go somewhere to enjoy life, whatever the cost. Vegas still delivers incredible value. And for those who can afford more than value when they travel, (perhaps that will be me some day,) Vegas still holds a lot of appeal, despite its sins.

Circa won't be a license to print money, but plenty of people have plenty of cash to spend, as Vegas proves year after year. And there's enough of those folks willing to spend it downtown, I'm certain. Every hotel has high-end accommodations, but only the Golden Nugget markets that vibe from top to bottom. I don't think the addition of Circa is going to oversaturate that market. And the brothers Stevens are wisely positioned to pounce on that.

Nothing is foolproof, or impervious to the woes of our economy, but Circa is the downtown opportunity that nobody has jumped on, until now.