***Las Vegas LBE - Just More Crashes?
by John Latta and Malisa Burkeen
Conventional demographic logic tells us that the more visitors to a
location the higher the probability that a given entertainment site will be
successful. In a retail context the Caesar's Forum in Las Vegas certainly
follows that axiom where 18M out of 28M visitors come each year to this
expensive mall that creates one of the highest gross incomes of any in the
U.S. - $1,200/square foot. Yet, as Las Vegas struggles with its target
audience, (is it the family or the older couple or the single gambler or ?)
entertainment as a draw is struggling. In 1996 VWE shut down its location
in Las Vegas and the theme park at the MGM hotel is rumored to be doing
poorly. Thus, we see indications that Las Vegas is not a Mecca for non-
gambling entertainment but just another brutal location where the same old
market forces are at play. These include: the entertainment social context,
the play attraction and value and the siting. We discuss the complexities
of the out-of-home entertainment market later in the Points to Ponder which
follows.
This month another Gameworks site opened with much fanfare. Being much
larger than Seattle it is another opportunity to test the premise - if
Dreamworks designs it will they come? Our review of the Seattle site was
doubting and at Las Vegas we are even more doubtful. Located in the
Showcase Mall next to the MGM Hotel this is an another example of what
lavish spending can fabricate. The mall is actually a facade for Gameworks,
a Coke merchandise store and a restaurant. Gameworks is actually
underground where the two floors of play are below ground level.
As one walks in at ground level you see the top of Clear Climb, which is
claimed to be the tallest retail climbing rock (actually 2 peaks) at 75'.
For $10 you can go the full length and $6.00 the height is 40'. We visited
the location twice and on both occasions the rock climbing drew the
greatest crowds, however, it was not clear that this translated into more
business. These watchers, at the ground level, did not end up taking the
escalators down into Gameworks.
The components in both Seattle and Las Vegas are very similar: foods,
fries, drinks, bar, Starbucks and play areas. The difference being that Las
Vegas is much larger. The play prices track the high Seattle prices. We did
notice that Virtua Fighter 3 (VF3) had dropped from $1.50 in Seattle to
$1.00 in Las Vegas. We believe this is a measure of how difficult it is to
get players to go for fighting games. VF3 is the first Sega product to use
the new Lockheed-Martin Model 3 3D technology. At least in the US, VF3 is
seen as a dud because fighting games have lost their appeal.
We sampled Gameworks at two times: Sunday AM and Monday PM. On Sunday
morning it was virtually empty while early Monday evening we counted about
50 - a number which seems quite low if this is to be high traffic location.
On both days there was a hawker on the sidewalk trying to get more to come
into Gameworks (Monday there were two). As in Seattle the staffing level
was high. On Sunday the staff overwhelmed the number of players and even on
Monday night there appeared to be more staff than players. Many of the
staff assisted players in understanding the games.
Our sample found the demographics were skewed to males and father-son
combinations. Although there were women present they were not active game
players while in Seattle we saw more female participation.
The following was empty on Monday: food, drinks and playing pool.
Vertical Reality - the vertical lift ride was masked over and would not be
complete until the end of June. We understand that this ride has technical
problems and during our visit to Seattle it was also not operational.
We went to the Monte Carlo hotel to observe one of the few Greystone Mag
Ball installations. It costs $3.00 per play and located in an arcade area
of the hotel. However, on both visits we could find no players.
Wave Issue 9712 5/21/97 Article 9-01