Hard Rock Las Vegas to close in February 2020

Hard Rock Las Vegas will be closing in 6 months.

It is being rebranded "Virgin Hotels Las Vegas".

The original plan was to stay open during the transition, but they've changed their minds and will be shutting it down for 8-11 months. It is slated to reopen between October 2020 and January 2021. Originally the closure was going to take place in June 2020, and it was to last 4-7 months, so this adds 4 months to the closure.

CEO Richard "Boz" Bozworth (no relation to "The Boz" here) said this:

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We determined that a phased closing of four months, followed by a total closure of four months was not efficient from a construction process nor could we provide a hospitality service experience our guests deserve. Therefore an approximate eight-month closure would be most efficient and ensure a timely opening prior to January 2021. We might be ready in October, but construction is an imperfect process. Until early February 2020 it is business as usual at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas. Virgin Hotels Las Vegas promises to be one of the most exciting, vibrant, and anticipated properties to open in Las Vegas in years.

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Sounds like fun for all the Hard Rock employees, which the article doesn't address. Branson will probably "guarantee all current employees a job" when they reopen.

Too bad this is happening to the HRH, for obvious reasons. I could think of more deserving places for this guy Branson to mess up.

This seems like a horrible idea to me. Seems like the last thing you want to do is shutdown and have your customer base go somewhere else. They might just find they like it.

Plus these things have a way of always being much longer than originally planned. This 4 months has already turned into 8-11 months and will probably end up being a couple years or longer. What if the economy tanks and work stops and it sits there for years, Like the big blue monster? :confused:

Just seems like a bad idea, but what do I know?

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Originally Posted by kewlJ

This seems like a horrible idea to me. Seems like the last thing you want to do is shutdown and have your customer base go somewhere else. They might just find they like it.

Plus these things have a way of always being much longer than originally planned. This 4 months has already turned into 8-11 months and will probably end up being a couple years or longer. What if the economy tanks and work stops and it sits there for years, Like the big blue monster? :confused:

Just seems like a bad idea, but what do I know?

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This is like the SLS. We know the place won't be that great. They're going to spend all that money and have fewer people. To get people off the strip the casino really needs to be something special (doesn't exist yet). I haven't read into this, but I'd be surprised if that is what is going on here.

Who wants to stay off the strip and not downtown?!

Owners will spend money on a remodel then economic downturn will happen. These off-strip / non-downtown locations are always a bomb. The only way to win that game is be cheap. Lol remodeling. Like.. that lucky dragon place couldn't even keep the doors open.

Branson is one of these "full of himself" people. It's stupid to change that theme in an already very competitive market. The HRH already ropes in as many California flakes and yuppies as is possible, and changing a popular music and skimpily clothed women brand into something to do with a boring, stuffy European airline brand is foolish.

RIP HRH.

It's sad to see the themed resorts go away.

This may be related to the time needed and the pending sale of the cosmo

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Originally Posted by Advantageplay

This may be related to the time needed and the pending sale of the cosmo

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Can you elaborate on that thought some more?
Blackstone has been talking about a possible sale but I was unaware anything is actually in the works. Or are you implying they will bring it to market during the HRC closing?

So is the thought that the current Hard Rock will close and reopen as Virgin casino or something and the Cosmo could be sold to Hard rock casinos (which does not own the current Hard rock casino) resulting in an unrelated Hard Rock casino on the strip?

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Originally Posted by kewlJ

So is the thought that the current Hard Rock will close and reopen as Virgin casino or something and the Cosmo could be sold to Hard rock casinos (which does not own the current Hard rock casino) resulting in an unrelated Hard Rock casino on the strip?

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....and that the Virgin Hotel/Casino will close down one year later.

From what I know hard rock is interested and was pushing for the other hard rock to sell. They are interested in Cosmo that I know for 100 percent fact as they have had their team there. Doing some behind the scenes walk through previously

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Originally Posted by Advantageplay

From what I know hard rock is interested and was pushing for the other hard rock to sell. They are interested in Cosmo that I know for 100 percent fact as they have had their team there. Doing some behind the scenes walk through previously

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Thanks

I also think it's stupid, for the reasons kewlJ stated.

Additionally, as has also been stated here, a non-strip hotel has little chance of succeeding these days, unless it's something special.

I predict an epic fail for Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, and if not that, it will be produce middling results at best.

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Additionally, as has also been stated here, a non-strip hotel has little chance of succeeding these days, unless it's something special.

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Not sure I agree with this. While I don't follow or even care all that much about how well different casinos are doing financially, seems like a number of off strip places are doing well. I would even go as far to say they have a clientele that prefers their "off Strip" status and location. Red Rock, Green Valley, South Point, The M, Silverton, Suncoast and to a lesser degree Sam's town, Sunset Station, Santa Fe Station. These are all off strip locations that the customers go to because they are off strip locations.

When someone says "off strip" these places just mentioned are the places I think of. I don't consider Hooters off strip. It is a football fields walk off strip and because MGM has their main entrance half way down that block there is a lot of foot traffic. Palms, Hard Rock, Orleans, Rio, Westgate while technically off strip, I still consider on the strip. They have the same strip/touristy customer base as strip casinos.

Now you get into places like Silver7, Gold Coast, while they are just off strip similar to Palms, Hard Rock, it is a completely different customer base....the local's type customers.

Now about Hard Rock specifically, while I haven't followed their financials, for years, I kept hearing they were losing money. I frequent Hard Rock fairly regularly and they are always packed on weekends. Much less so during the week....but aren't all casinos, especially the non local types?

It seemed to me, that Hard Rock and Palms filled a specific target group. Those 50-60 year olds, that were the rock-and roll generation of the 80's. I mean when my partner was alive, I went to a number of those kinds of concerts at both locations and like I said, those places were always packed on weekends. Now maybe that group, specific to the music scene doesn't translate well into gambling revenue, meaning they aren't big gamblers.....I don't know. But like I said, always crowded. Makes me wonder if mis-management might not be a consideration. :rolleyes:

Palms is a funny one. Prior to being bought by stations, Palms was definitely a "combo" casino. During the weekdays they attracted the local crowd, as they had decent promotions for locals. They were very similar to Station (who bought them) and Boyd type casinos catering to and drawing locals. But on the weekends they completely changed catering to that younger "club going" type crowd. I have no idea how they are doing as a Station property as I don't visit that often. :confused:

I think the successful casinos are able to figure out what they are and who their customer base is and target them accordingly. But then other casinos seem to just try different things. Kind of like throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what works. And they keep changing who they are and who they are targeting frequently.

And from a business outsider, it seems like these 100's of million of dollar "make-overs" (like Palms did) never work, or never work for long, never enough to recoup the cost. New is New and people like new....at least for a while, until something newer comes along. But these make-overs (SLS, Palms) just don't seem to make the place "new" again as they envision.

Palms' restaurant where Hooters(?) used to be is called Greene St. It's probably the worst fucking disaster of a restaurant I've ever been to. I don't know the best way to describe it, but it seems they were going for a boutique / arcade / upscale theme. I had some hearts of palm salad that had NO redeeming qualities. There wasn't even any hearts of palm in it, even though the waitress said there was. I'm pretty sure it was really just cabbage. I'm not picky when it comes to food, like at all...usually I can just wolf shit down, but this salad....this was some next level shit. You know that feeling when you're eating and you're like, "Heh, that wasn't a good bite of food, but the next bite is going to be good" ? Yeah, it was basically that, except the next bite was never good. It wasn't even like, "Eh, it's not good food, but it's edible". NOPE, it's just flat out BAD.

I did have some sort of a ribeye though, which was actually very good. Overall, though, the food took almost forever to get served. Likely won't go again.

Announced today that Mohegan Sun Gaming or Mohegan Gaming will be running The Virgin Casino Las Vegas after the takeover.

As a blackjack player I was hoping for someone else. Blackjack wise Hard Rock hasn't offered much for a while now, so that probably isn't going to change. :(