The Las Vegas reopening kicked off with a bang following the coronavirus shutdown, and the party is on.
Sergio Portesan, a 26-year-old Colorado man visits Vegas every chance he gets. With a middle name of Elvis, and a tattoo on his left bicep of the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, it’s safe to say Sergio is a huge fan of our fabulous gambling and entertainment mecca. Sergio visits Vegas every chance he gets, and his last visit to Sin City was for his birthday in January, months before every casino in the state went dark as the novel coronavirus swept the globe.
As you can imagine, no one was going to keep Sergio from the grand Vegas reopening party; that is, except his mom. Mom is a nurse in Minnesota, and Sergio wanted her approval, given the concerns about the coronavirus.
“I said, if you tell me no, I won’t go,” Sergio said. “She said, do it. It’s historic. It’s important to you. It will never happen again. You’re young and healthy.”
That’s all Sergio needed to hear; he and his partner Alex grabbed a flight from Denver to Las Vegas. Once they landed, they headed straight downtown, being among the first to celebrate the Las Vegas reopening. The coronavirus lockdown killed tourism in the state, and caused the highest unemployment levels in the country.
The duo walked around Fremont Street wearing masks before enjoying happy hour at the Downtown Cocktail Room. Finally, the pair hit D Las Vegas casino, right as it opened at midnight. Alex played $1 on a “Quick Hit” penny slot and immediately won the bonus, a big payout of $2.17.
6-4-20 the Historic Vegas Reopening
Derek Stevens, the owner of The D, offered free one-way tickets to kick-off the recovery of tourism in the beleaguered Sin City. Stevens treated the Vegas reopening as both a grand opening and something like a New Year’s Eve party.
Steven’s hotel guests were treated at check-in with free champagne, and there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the casino floor. Printed on the ribbon, it said, “I was there! 6-4-20 Reopening Vegas!”
A Phoenix truck driver named Bobbi waited near the ribbon before the casino reopened, hoping for a souvenir piece. A worker who recognized Bobbi as the first person to check into the hotel that morning gave her a piece of the ribbon as a birthday present.
Bobbi turned 60 in March and had to postpone her Las Vegas birthday celebration with her daughter and sister five times as the coronavirus shutdown dragged on for months. Hotels in the city were forced to cancel reservations month after month. “It’s been months of us just trying to get here,” she said.
Bobbi almost missed the grand Vegas reopening, too. Last week, her truck broke down in Oregon, forcing her to rent a car to drive here to meet her family. They’re staying here for a whole week. “Now that we’re here, we’re so excited,” she said. “We’re hoping to get a seat at keno, and we’ll play for days.”
The D hotel offered rooms for as low as $30, sans the resort fee, opening night. The hotel wasn’t sold out, but Stevens said there’s a good chance the hotel could sell out by the weekend.
The tourists coming for the grand Vegas reopening tend to be Sin City fanatics, Stevens said, and are younger; younger people could be more comfortable traveling during the post-pandemic, since older people are a higher-risk group for COVID-19.
“This is a very fun, outgoing group,” Stevens said of his reopening guests. “These are people who want to escape their hometown and play in Vegas.”
Vegas lovers, especially gamblers, have been eager to get here. In some cases, Vegas fans wanted to get back as quickly as the Vegas reopening, observed Jason Guggenheim, of Boston Consulting Group’s global tourism and travel and tourism division.
Kayak, a travel website, saw more than a 100% increase in searches for Las Vegas the day after Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak announced the Vegas reopening plan. However, searches for Sin City were still 60% down from a year ago.
Stevens put down a bet that the first tourists to return to Las Vegas would bring more money than usual to play on slots, blackjack, roulette, and craps and slot machines. That’s because the nationwide stay-at-home orders have put a limit on opportunities to spend.
“If you were able to keep your job, and you still had an income, you didn’t have anywhere to spend it,” he said. “The only fun you could spend on was DoorDash.”
John Lujan flew in from Los Angeles for the Las Vegas reopening, so he could gamble on the very first night casinos reopened. The last time he was in Vegas was in mid-March, when the casinos shut down.
What brought Lujan back? “I love gambling,” he said.
The minute the D Casino reopened, Lujan went straight to a $15 roulette table, scattering chips all over as Elvis belted out, “Viva, Las Vegas” in the background.
Lujan didn’t wear a mask, and more than half of the casino visitors were equally relieved to be rid of them in public. Casino visitors aren’t required to wear masks, but casino employees are.
Lujan did note the mandatory temperature checks for hotel and casino guests at the D “felt kinda weird.” Hotel policies across the city vary, but the D requires temperature checks every time a guest enters. Just down the street, the Golden Nugget only takes a hotel guests’ temperature at check-in.
Overall, Lujan was excited to be back in town; “I think this is probably the best day ever.”
Downtown Las Vegas reopening off to a slow start
Casinos across the city remained closed until midnight, and most hotels held off check-in until 3 p.m. That got the downtown Las Vegas reopening off a slow start.
The Fremont Street Experience opened in the morning, but the pedestrian mall featuring a giant video canopy, outdoor bars, tourist shops, and a zip line, remained empty until sunset.
Kevin Kopec of Cashman Photo Enterprises, originally planned to open the company’s photo kiosk on Fremont Street the afternoon of the reopening, but decided to wait as visitors failed to show up. “Fremont Street is a ghost town,” he said.
The Cashman photo kiosk offers tourists pictures with Chippendale’s models, but Kopec canceled them so the kiosk wouldn’t lose money. “Having a couple of Chippendale models here is a high hourly cost,” he said. “Right now, we’re not in a position to lose any more money.”
Black Lives Matter protests didn’t keep visitors away from the downtown Vegas reopening
More nights of Black Lives Matter protesting the death of George Floyd didn’t scare away Debbie Fontenot and Cary Reed from celebrating Las Vegas’ reopening.
The Louisiana couple stopped in Las Vegas on the way back from a funeral, arriving the night a Las Vegas police officer was shot and a protester died in separate shootings.
The couple was surprised to see the casinos were still closed and decided to stay for the reopening so they could gamble.
Fontenot said she was reassured by the law enforcement officers and vehicles outside their hotel, the Golden Nugget, during a downtown protest. “I know I’m safe here in Vegas,” she said. “They’re not going to be able to get us. We have too much protection here.”
Next, The Las Vegas Strip reopens
Once downtown casino hotels reopen, attention will turn to the world-renowned Las Vegas Strip, home to the glittering casino resorts famous all over the world. The big casino companies, including Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts, planned their Las Vegas reopening the morning after downtown. The famous Bellagio fountains were dancing again, and the High Roller observation wheel was rolling once again.
Just like the downtown experience, the Strip was packed, due to pent-up demand.
One downtown casino official observed that reopening night was like an average Saturday night; thankfully, it was as if the coronavirus shutdown had never happened. “The enthusiasm makes me wonder what next Saturday night will be like.”
