CIRQUE DU SOLEIL’S is closing this month – Vegas News
Terry Fator, Taylor Makakoa and her mom Lani at this year’s Hoku Awards. Kimo Akane photo
Welcome to Kimo’s Vegas … the Players Edge!
TERRY FATOR: A Country Christmas transforms his showroom at the Mirage into the Fator family’s “living room” with all of our favorites including his wife Taylor Makakoa, Winston the Impersonating Turtle, Vikki “The Cougar,” Duggie Scott Walker, Julius, Emma Taylor, the world’s greatest Elvis impersonator Maynard Tompkins and Berry Fabulous. And making his Las Vegas debut: Kani Kapila … eh, brah, what school you wen’?
SEVEN OUT … “SIRENS of TI” has been sunk for good. The free show has been a spectacle of the city since 1993. Look for three stories and 48,000 square feet of shopping to open there this time next year.
CIRQUE DU SOLEIL’S “Zarkana” is closing this month … when it re-opens in February it’ll be refreshed. Cirque du Soleil consistently tweaks its shows to make them better.
MOST OF US who have been going to Vegas since before we were 21 have a highly developed sense of “been there, done that” when it comes to Vegas attractions. But even the most jaded of Sin City regulars have not visited the Silverton Casino Hotel’s Underwater Santa. Look for the Jolly One and his Elves hanging out with more than 4,000 sharks, stingrays and tropical fish in the resort’s 117,000-gallon aquarium. St. Nick joins our aumakua every weekend through Christmas!
IF WE DIDN’T have one in Ala Moana, the new Microsoft store in the Fashion Show Mall would be my new fave hangout (after the massage area).
SHELDON ADELSON, CHAIRMAN and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp., says Internet gaming is bad for the United States. So he’s creating a national campaign, the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling, to lobby for a national ban. Is it oxymoronic that a guy with an estimated net worth of $28.5 billion made largely from casino gaming to have such a stance? Well, the 11th richest person on the Forbes 400 says gambling on the Internet poses a danger to children, poor people and those with a gambling addiction, and land-based casinos have protections for those groups.
ON THE OTHER side of the table is Caesars, MGM Resorts International, Boyd Gaming Corp. and Station Casinos. They all have significant investments in online gambling – an estimated $2.6 billion market in the U.S. last year.
STEVE WYNN SAYS he’s undecided but understands where his competitor is coming from, but is unsure where Internet gaming is going. He’s quoted as saying, “On the other hand, playing poker is America, and outlawing poker is like the Volstead Act,” where they outlawed beer … we all know how that ended.
THE PILLSBURY BAKE-OFF was held in Vegas and folks from all over the country made the trek to compete for the title of the country’s best baker. The $1 million first prize went to a baker who had the shortest trip, Glori Spriggs of Nevada.
Kimo@KimosVegas.com
