I shot both of the above photos on Christmas day 2006.
While I enjoy photographing the massive architecture and array of colored lights on the Las Vegas strip, I dislike the crowds. After a few visits and some Internet research, around 1995, I selected the time segment after the National Finals Rodeo (which has been held during the beginning of December and temporarily transforms Las Vegas into a Texas rodeo) and prior to Christmas Eve as an ideal time to visit Las Vegas. The cowboys are gone, the Christmas holiday tourists haven't arrived yet. Hotel rates and crowd sizes in general are lower than average.
In 2006, however, I decided to come to Las Vegas on Christmas eve and leave the day after Christmas. I thought: "Most people will be home with their families. It can't be that bad." I was wrong.
I recall viewing a web site once which stated that 65% of Japan is atheist, along with about 45% of the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Norway. I don't know if those numbers are accurate but those are the people who were in Las Vegas on Christmas.
The strip (Las Vegas Boulevard) was packed to full capacity. The odd thing about it in comparison with my other trips along the crowded strip at other times of the year was that most of the people I overheard were not speaking English. It seemed to be mostly Japanese and German. So there I was, trying to navigate through crowds of other people who, like me, don't consider Christmas as anything special.
Almost every casino has one or two Starbucks now. Christmas morning, every Starbucks was so crowded that I wouldn't go in. Some places of the sidewalk were so crowded that you had to go along with the crowd - it was impossible to speed up and go around those in front, or to slow down and let those behind you pass. Parades of jaywalkers prevented traffic from moving ahead at green lights. This was, I think, my 14th trip to Las Vegas, and I'd never seen it this crowded before.
Some dates in February are very good for taking advantage of uncrowded conditions, but I've been trapped in flash floods and downpours in February. One year in March, I was in what seemed like a sandstorm. Well, Las Vegas is in the desert so it was a sandstorm. December is the best time to visit: the days are mild, the nights are very cold; but it doesn't rain often - and the sky is an amazing clear blue, as in the photo of the Luxor above. If you go to Las Vegas during the summer, the daytime sky is often an ugly gray which probably consists of trapped car exhaust.
So. Not only was Las Vegas full of people who don't care about Christmas on Christmas, but Las Vegas itself doesn't care about Christmas. There were a few decorations scattered here and there; Caesars Palace always has a large Christmas tree (or "holiday tree") on their front lawn during December - but otherwise it's business as usual. Everything is open. Fast food joints, convenience stores, restaurants... nothing is closed for the holiday.
Christmas Eve, I walked from the Luxor down to the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada" sign. The only evidence of Christmas Eve I saw was that some people who were going to go into a Subway fast food place were told that they were closing at 6 PM today instead of 10 PM. From the Welcome sign I walked up to Bally's to shoot my favorite neon rings; then back to the Luxor.
Christmas morning, I went back to the "Welcome" sign to get some daylight photos of the sign (the ones I shot the day before, were at night.) Then I walked all the way (4 1/2 miles) up to the Stratosphere. I've been up to the top of the Stratosphere 3 or 4 times, it's a great place for shooting photos. I paid $10 for my ticket to ride to the top - then saw the cleverly hidden line with about 500 people waiting. The ticket says "No refunds" so I tried to give it away to some suspicious people who thought I was trying to somehow take advantage of them by giving them a free $10 ticket. Someone eventually accepted it. And I learned, for next time, you can buy a $20 ticket that lets you bypass the elevator line. At that moment I wasn't in the mood to either wait on a long line or fork over another $20 after I had just thrown away $10.
From Stratosphere I walked back to the Luxor.
Of course, I was shooting photos almost constantly during these long walks; including that photo of the Stardust marquee, above.
That section of the Las Vegas strip, was like a ghost town. I had known that the Stardust was closed (and it was imploded on March 13, 2007; gone forever) but was surprised to see that Westward Ho, next to the Stardust, had been completely demolished except for a skeleton of its sign. Boardwalk Holiday Inn, with the big clown face and roller coaster, had been demolished as well. Wet-N-Wild, which used to be just south of the Sahara, closed a couple of years ago... but it's still sitting there in a dilapidated, semi-demolished state; full of graffiti. You can view photos of this trip at my web site urbanphotos.net, click on "Las Vegas #5".
But what's new? The Sky condos. Some other condo project on Sahara. The Cosmopolitan, going up in between the Bellagio and Monte Carlo, is going to be condos and time shares. The Hilton Grand Vacation Club, more timeshares, just north of Circus Circus. I think Turnberry Place (near the Hilton) started it all. No they didn't - the Jockey Club and Polo Towers have been around awhile. Casinos are out, condos and time shares are in.
The $4.4 billion Echelon Resort is scheduled to be completed in late 2010 at the old Stardust site. I expect they'll build multipurpose units that can be used either as condos or hotel rooms and make their decision at the last minute as to which business model they'll use.
Steve Wynn made a bold move when he began construction of his Wynn Resort across the street from the musty old "New Frontier" around 2003. Boyd Casinos is following this lead with their Echelon Resort at the Stardust site. The strip is creeping north and will perhaps eventually reach Fremont Street. After the El Rancho site and the Wet-N-Wild site are filled in with something - let's see who is brave enough to build a new megaresort north of Sahara near the Stratosphere.
OR will the trend reverse and go south? I recall when the Excalibur was new; and the Luxor; then Mandalay Bay... the south strip seemed to be the new hot spot. It would make sense, since the airport is in that area, to extend the strip to the south. There are some kind of FAA rules or laws governing structure height because of the airport, is that why nobody wants to build south of Mandalay Bay?
Las Vegas is in a constant state of flux. I like a lot of things about it. I'd live there if it wasn't 120 degrees every summer. "It's a dry heat! That's what all the schmucks say." (James Caan in "Honeymoon in Vegas.")
