Vegas Sphere Stuns, New Private Vegas Membership, MGM's Big Plans & More!

Hello and welcome to the MT and Vegas podcast. I'm Sean Coomer, your host joined as always by Mark Ostriman. We have a great show for you. As a reminder, you can watch this entire show along with all the visuals that go with it at youtube.com forward slash miles to memories that's youtube.com forward slash miles to memories. We record two shows a week on Tuesdays and Fridays, release them on youtube and then combine them into this audio podcast once a week for your listening enjoyment. We hope you enjoy it. If you do like the show, consider leaving us a five star review and Apple podcasts or your preferred podcast app. It helps us out tremendously. And as a final reminder, you can find all of our Vegas content that's posts, podcasts and videos at mtmvegas.com. Thanks again for listening. Let's hit it. So Mark, you've seen those big cars driving down the street with the billboards on the side. And then you have all the screens all over the strip. There's advertising everywhere. We're marketed everywhere, but there's a new market emerging. And that is billboard advertising on the back of wheelchairs in downtown Las Vegas, brilliant strategy or a ridiculousness at its worst. I'm gonna put like flyers like, you know, the planes that fly by in the air and they just kind of tail behind the wheelchairs or the the amigos, you know, get them on those too. And I don't know, this is crazy. Like it feels like a stadium where they just put a billboard on everything. And wheelchairs, I don't know, that's nuts. I mean, it's next level for sure. But it's probably pretty effective, right? Because you can weave in and out of the crowds. You know, you have a billboard. It's in one spot, but this is just moving around. And on the free mon street, where you don't have cars, I think it's a brilliant display of advertising. But I wonder how much the person in the wheelchair is getting paid for that. They should pay people like they should give them half off if they get a flyer on them when they do the zip line. And there you go. Rumors are a bound that there could be a strike at the casinos among security workers, maybe inspired by some of the culinary, you know, displays and things going on. Las Vegas locally shared that there possibly could be a strike. And then Vital Vegas shared some information about job openings where you really get to see how much security officers make at the Las Vegas strip casinos. And it looks like anywhere from like $15 to $18 to start, which, you know, when you figure out what people are making, I just like fast food or I'd say a lot less stressful jobs, it doesn't seem like $15 to $18 is a great pace. Maybe they have a point here. But I can't imagine being a security officer in Las Vegas is a lot of fun on some nights. Yeah, I mean, you know, 15, 18 bucks might have been good 15, 20 years ago, but especially since COVID, you've seen like McDonald's offer sign up bonus or like sign on bonuses. And like, you know, they're paying 15 bucks plus to do that job. So this is stress in another level. And it's not like, you know, working as a dealer or whatever that they get some tips to offset some of that cost and, you know, getting to and from the strip is kind of a pain now. And yeah, it's a tough racket. And you know, the good news would be if they do go on strike, Sean, you just got to run in there and film everything you can film while you can film it. Exactly. This is the best news for Vegas vloggers. You can just go in and go hog wild and then be like securities on strike. But you know, that's my love hate relationship with them, right? I mean, that's most of my run-ins are being told not to film in a casino. But generally, I have pretty good run-ins with them. I used to work at MGM grand back in the day. And security back then, they were usually all ex-military. Most of them carried weapons back then. In fact, almost all of them did. So it was sort of different, whereas now most officers that are on casino floors do not have weapons. I don't feel like they are a lot of ex-military. Huge respect to everybody who does it. I think no matter whether you're the lowest level security officer, somebody who's high-trained, you should get paid well. And it does seem like those pay rates are a little bit low compared to all the crap that you have to deal with as a security guard in Las Vegas, including those snotty vloggers who want to just stick their camera everywhere. If you look at their short staff and that has to do with probably paid, like if you're not going to pay somebody a good wage, nobody's going to come and sign up to do that job and do the training and everything. And I don't really ever notice them that much as just somebody walking through the casinos. But when you need them, you want them there. And especially with everything that we've seen happen in Vegas, whether it be on Fremont Street or on the strip, you know, just the craziness that happens. And you want somebody there to protect it, you know, even, you know, they stay in there and watch the elevators make sure that whoever's going up is supposed to be going up to the hotel. But this is what we see across Vegas. And, you know, the hospitality industry is they're struggling to fill those spots. Even when these casinos and hotels are making all-time high record profits, it's just kind of crazy, you know, like give a little bit back. So you have happy people. We talked on the last show about green valley ranches, epic transformation or whatever they called it. So I was walking there this weekend. And there's not a lot going on there, the same construction walls. So there's really wasn't much for me to film. I did get a film, the new bar there, which looks very nice. It's right in the area where the cashier was for the old buffet. And I did want to answer a question. Somebody asked in the comments when we were talking about green valley ranch and I showed some footage out by the pool. They're like, is that a vineyard back there? And yes, there is a vineyard out there by the pool, which I think is one of the cooler little outdoor areas in all of Las Vegas casinos. This vineyard that kind of goes back by the spa over near the pool area there at green valley ranch. So not a lot to report as far as construction just walls, the new bar, but yeah, vineyard. Pretty cool. Yeah, I didn't know that that was there. That is kind of unique. Did you see, you know, I know this wasn't on a list, but did you see Durango lit up last week? It just popped like they lit up the sign and the logo and everything look pretty cool. Look slick logo. I like it. I saw a video of it, but I didn't see it as a big thing, but yeah, I saw it lit up. So I'll find the video we can throw up on the screen right now for everybody. It is just lights on the side of a building, but you know, we've got to get excited about some. Well, we're going to get excited about lights on the side of a building later in this show as well. So I guess we'll keep doing that. For sure. Yeah, boom. So there is this article of five top luxury sweets in Las Vegas from the review journal and I actually saw this a couple months ago and we've been meaning to cover it. Obviously, we've talked about the villas at the mirage. We did a whole episode where we covered some of these in depth review of that. Those villas are getting renovated and a lot of the hotels around town have these sort of high-end villas. You know, yeah, the Palazzo sweets at Rio, the mansions at MGM. These are super exclusive hotels within a hotel, but sometimes you just have some really cool rooms within hotels. And I'll start with this, the Burrana Sky Villa at Westgate. So Westgate has this old like Parisian theme, I guess, in some of their villas. Start with the one nobody plans on you starting with. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's what was surprising to me. And these are like these very over-the-top. Westgate is owned by, was it David Siegel? The guy who created, you know, the Versailles or he's building his Versailles mansion in Florida. If you've ever watched the, was it the Queen of Versailles, that documentary is very interesting, very much into, you know, European architecture. And these big sweets are very much of that sort of vein the way they're decorated. They're huge. I didn't realize these were big. I wonder how these were decorated back in like the Hilton days, the international, like the old days. But yeah, these villas are very like old-world French, aristocratian kind of things. Interesting for Las Vegas, I guess. Yeah, definitely, you know, not something that you expect in good space. And there are people that definitely like that type of style and everything that will draw them in. I know my favorite, are we allowed to skip, or do you have an idea of what order you want to go here? Well, I don't have an idea, but I did want to point out that that, that the Verona Sky Villa is 15,400 square feet. So I didn't even know there was rooms that big at the Westgate. So I'm just going to keep talking about Westgate because I think that we should just do now. What was the next one that you had on your? I know that you love room size. So that's big for you. I mean, we got to talk about the carpet maybe too. Throw that in there, but definitely in mind is the one at the palms with the pool, you know, and everybody knows about that one. But I think that's such a cool, unique feature that you have there. I mean, the inside of the suite looks amazing. I think they have like a 13-seat bar, you know, foosball, all that type of stuff. Cool stuff, but that pool just like floating out, looking at the strip. I mean, could you imagine that for the 4th of July Fireworks show where you're just chilling in your, you know, your pool, thousands of feet in the air hanging out, checking it out. Yeah, it looks amazing. That also has like two private massage rooms. So you can get your massage room, a sauna in that hotel suite at palms, the empathy suite. So that's definitely I think one of like the more modern hip-best, you know, sweets there. There's also the Nobu Village Caesars Palace that they cover. We've talked about that through some of like million dollars Caesars Palace, forming the one packages. And then there's the presidential suite at Mandalay Bay, which I was surprised to see, because this is a hotel that has Delano, a higher end hotel within it. You have four seasons there, but this is at Mandalay Bay proper. And another good-looking room that's just massive. And you know, I wonder how often these rooms get rented out versus how often they're given as comms. Yeah, I'm sure, you know, summer rent, you know, when people come in just billionaires from overseas, probably run them out, you know, that don't gamble a ton. But I bet you most of them are whales. And I want to say like, nope, the Nobu one was my second favorite because of that outdoor patio area. You know, I love an outdoor patio. So I think that's really cool. But I feel like Mandalay Bay, that two-story window with the spiral staircase, that's kind of like what everybody envisions in their mind because of movies, you know, like Rain Man and stuff. Like that's what you think of Vegas sweets. I feel like that's kind of like a throwback. And the only thing I've stayed in that even comes somewhat close to this. And I think I've talked about this before is the spa tower sweets at Golden Nugget. And I did this back in like, 2009, 2010. A couple of years in a row, we could get them for like 250 bucks a night, which is insane. I think they're now like six, seven hundred dollars, but they've been remodeled. But that had a spiral staircase, two-floor windows, really a beautiful room. My favorite room, Vegas for sure. There's something about having a spiral staircase in your room that just adds to all of the joy and, you know, and just makes it so much more. It's so much fun. I had that too. So, you know, double whammy. So I alluded to this when I was in Legoland a month or two ago, whenever it was that they have this mini-land there for Las Vegas. And it opened with the park 20 years ago, the park's now 20 years old. And so it's like a look at what the Las Vegas strip was 20 years ago. And the first thing that like kind of mirrors each other is that this Legoland and Legoland and Carl's Bad is falling apart. Kind of similar to the way the strips exterior are falling apart. They haven't invested in fixing it up, you know, 20 years of being out in the weather. It's absolutely falling apart. But it's really cool because you have recreations of things like MGM Grand, Excalibur, Luxor, Treasure Island. There's just a bunch of different things. There's like working pieces on there of like trains and buses going. Definitely an interesting thing. And you have like the old color scheme for Treasure Island with some of the old facades there. So it's like kind of a look back on the Las Vegas from 20 years ago through the Isle Lego rotting away with the sun. Yeah, no. And I envision that all the colors are faded just like circus, circus top before the paint job. So no, but you know, I think we've seen in the comments on these videos that, you know, 15, 20 to 30 years ago is kind of when everybody feels was the heyday of Vegas, you know, good deals, cool shows, cheap food, good service. And, you know, we've kind of moved away from that. And everything had kind of a uniqueness to it. So it's kind of cool to see that, you know, frozen in time a bit, even if it is with Lego blocks. And the nice thing is that the Statue of Liberty at New York, New York still has water in the Lego version. So, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a great look back. All right. So fourth of July is coming the day this comes out. And we've talked before about the sphere. First, it was just solid colors. They were testing. And then what a week or two ago, we saw them testing lines. And now we see this sort of full volcanic kind of effect. And they've announced that they're doing a full show on the fourth of July. So we're going to actually get somewhat of a show going on there. We've already seen testing for it with this volcanic effect that all show everybody here. But like we're going to actually get a show. This thing's going to come to life. I don't know exactly what it's going to be. The information is a little bit iffy, but they have confirmed they're doing something for fourth of July. A nice little summertime treat and surprise. Yeah, I think this is big, you know, because we've, I've joked about how it doesn't look real when you see pictures and everything. And the volcanic video was the first thing that really made it feel like it came to life to me a bit. And you know, they're going to want to go all out because this is kind of like their hello to the world. And it's going to get shared everywhere. So I'm excited to see what it looks like and what it's able to do. And I think they'll release, if not full power, you know, most of the way there of what what is available to them and what they're able to do. So we get kind of a maybe a fuel for what their vision is going forward. You know, maybe it won't just be billboards. Maybe they'll have cool light shows, you know, and maybe they'll put up a long bar outside. So you can have a drink while you watch it. I don't know. There's just some ideas spitballing there. But I'm excited to see it. You know, I joke about it all the time. But this is kind of big news for them. And hopefully it goes well and gets people excited about it. Add to the MTM drinking game. Every time Mark mentions the longest bar in the world that never happened at the MSG sphere. But they have said that they're going to do holiday displays. So they're going to do Halloween, Christmas, stuff like that. So I think this is perfect way to kind of start that off. And you know, it's going to be a great compliment. This will be the first time we really get to see the effect of the screen operating in full on like traffic on airplanes. You know, you can see this thing from surprising number of places all around the city, you know, from various areas of the strip. But all the way from the east side of town, the west, I mean, it really does stick out because of where it is. Obviously airplanes fly right above it. Cars are driving right past it. So, you know, there was a lot of, I remember when the Legion Stadium opened that giant screen and people thought people were going to crash into each other watching football games on it. That's never happened. So I don't think we'll have a huge issue. But this will be the first time we get to see all of that. Because it's the Raiders. But I don't think people are going to crash their car because they're watching the fourth of July show on this fear. Do you? No, I mean, they might crash their wheelchairs with billboards on the back, but you know, that just happens sometimes. But no, I mean, it will be interesting to see like what effect it does have on the area. If anything at all, I doubt it will. I mean, I bet you there will be people like clustered into that area. So it might be a little bit tougher to get around. But other than that, I don't think it will do much in terms of that. But it'll be cool to see, you know, I'm looking forward to seeing videos of that as well as anybody that goes to the circa party. I'm very jealous of you having that view and, you know, share your videos, tweet at us on Twitter and let us know. Hopefully we don't hit the the 600 view band by the time we get to see them, you know, oh, don't want to trigger people. I was feeling bad about myself because I never hit the band. I'm like, am I not using Twitter powerfully enough in order to get it? But somebody told me that it might have been other areas. So I don't know. But yeah, like hit us up because I want to see the best videos and we'll share obviously whatever they do at the sphere. But some other cool things, legacy club. Yeah, if you're in and around town, hit us up at Detroit Mark at Miles to Memories. And we'll share that stuff here. And I hope that you have a good for to July mark. I'm just going to stay at home, maybe watch some fireworks from Green Valley Ranch because it's close by and, you know, stay out of all the craziness. I see you're up at your cottage enjoying the week. Yeah, we're here for a couple more days. So, you know, finally get and getting a little sun today. So we're going to go hit the lake and hang out. They had the fireworks show on Friday night earlier here. So we got to watch a little bit of that. But smaller show, nothing like Vegas. I still got to make it their ones for Vegas. Brave the heat, see everything shooting off at the same time. I think it'd be cool. Even though, you know, I got to find a rooftop somewhere to hang out to do it. The Nobu Villa. That's what you should rent on your July 4th trip. I'm sure it's good for you. Go find me. Mark at the Nobu Villa. There we go. Let's start it. So Mark, we've talked about the smut peddlers on the strip, the hot dog guys who have shown up on the strip. But now we have a new person coming into the game, a tarot card reader right out on the strip near Bellagio, I think. What will they think of next? I don't have, I mean, this just feels screams like free much tree. Like they're trying to make a little bit of money out here. And you know that she had to have gotten approval because you can't put up all these tables and lights and everything and be out on the strip. So this must be the something that they're trying to do. But it feels just cheap and crowded and it's terrible. And you know, we've complained about free much tree now. There's too much going on, you know, and this just feels exactly like that. So I'm all against it, not for it. I don't know that she has a approval for this. I think she just set up a table through some ring lights up and and she's doing this. I mean, I've never heard of people getting approval to do strip side stuff on the sidewalk like this. But I don't think that it's legal, but people can let us know in the comments. But I love that she just has the whole setup. Boom, got the lights, got everything. It's probably making a fortune to make it. Exactly. It's like that when I walked the Brooklyn Bridge and they have like those people with the 360 cameras set up in the New York, Alicia Keys song or whatever. And they have you stand there and do it. And I'm sure they're they don't have any, you know, approval to do that. But they're trying to make him bank from everybody wanting to make TikToks and everything. So same thing. I guess, you know, get it while you can. Fourth of July happened and fireworks happened all over the valley as expected. Who cares? So much illegal fireworks though. I mean, they only give about 61 citations and there's just illegal fireworks everywhere in the valley. That just shows you how good the enforcement really is. But of course, the big story of the night was the sphere Las Vegas Vegas fear. Nobody cares about formally known as the MSG sphere. You know, we've talked a lot about the financial problems with this building that it probably, you know, financially didn't make sense to build this. We covered all the struggles, all the construction ivory tests that they've done. And then they debuted it for an outside show on July 4th. And I mean, yeah, it was spectacular. It looks spectacular, didn't it? Yeah, I mean, and we talked last episode about, yeah, I don't think this will cause traffic problems or whatever and had to have to cause a lot of back. I was like, you know, people that were driving by stopped and took video or pictures or whatever. So, you know, if this is something that they do on a nightly, you know, nightly or something, I think that will maybe cause a problem. But it was really amazing. If, you know, I've given it a lot of crap, but it blew my mind and it was a lot better than I expected it to be. You know, this is what we originally envisioned it looking like in all throughout the it felt like it was going to be a dumb down version of it, but they really nailed it. Yeah, I remember what a couple of years ago when they released that new concept art that just had like stripes around the outside and we thought maybe they cut it back the screen and they didn't really refute that at all. So, there's just been a lot of rollercoaster rides with this and to see it finally lit up. And I think they did over 30 minutes of different visuals and there's videos all over social media. I'll throw some up here for you guys to look at. And there's so many different from like basketballs, like eyeballs, there's that volcanic stuff, the moon, the earth, a pumpkin. I mean, they just did so many things and like there's this one shot of the monorail going down where it's the moon and the monorail is passing and I mean, it looks incredible. I mean, I don't think that we've ever seen anything quite to this level of screen. So, you know, it's yeah, I'm almost speechless about it. It looked great and I can't wait to see even more, but what a great way to kind of debut it months before they actually open so they can get the hype machine going. Yeah, I wonder, you know, what's inside going to be like, we haven't really seen, seen inside with all the lights and everything and a show. I'm sure it's going to be epic when they when they do it. You know, I haven't seen any, have you seen any pictures from like an aircraft or anything, you know, somebody up in the sky flying into Vegas or flying out of Vegas during that period? I think that would have been cool, but I haven't seen anything pop up, but just imagine what it looks like from there. Maybe we can get like from the space station if it lines up properly. I wonder if it shows from there because it was like way better than I ever expected and everything looked really cool. So I do think it's going to be a traffic problem though. Yeah, I haven't seen anything from the area. I saw aerials of like the fireworks over Las Vegas, but I didn't see any specifically of the sphere. Yeah, we don't know, you know, what it looks like inside yet, Mark, but we do know one thing that's not going to be inside of the sphere. Yeah, the longest bar in the world is not going to be there. So I know it still hurts, but yeah, let us know what you guys think of the show. Did you go? Did you see the videos? Let us know in the comments. Let's discuss it there. Is this financial issues aside? This is pretty spectacular and it's a great thing for Las Vegas, I think. So also great for Las Vegas arguably. No, is Penn and Teller the long-time magicians at the Rio? In fact, I think they start there in 2001. So they've been going at it for a long time. They've watched that property really go downhill, but the dreamscape's taking over. Give you a imagine like the palace. They're closing. They're closing tricks should be making one pillow turn into five pillows so people can. But they just extended their stay there through 2026. Dreamscape announced this and that's not really a surprise because the whole redevelopment of Rio won't be finished before then. So keeping Penn and Teller there. They really like the theater. Probably not, but they really like the theater. They like, I've heard him talk on podcasts. Pendje led about, you know, he likes the comedians there. They got a really good schedule as far as their days off and being able to do other stuff. So they've been happy there. And like I said, they've watched the palace fall around them, crumble to the ground, but they're going to be sticking it out for a few more years there. Making it 25 all together. Yeah, it makes, yeah, it makes, I thought they had started before a one to be honest. It just feels like they're just been there forever. So which it's still very long time. And it's a show I've never made it to. And I always wanted to, you know, it was a part of the Caesar's diamond free tickets. And it was one of the harder ones to get and I could never make it work, but I always wanted to check it out. And I'm not a huge magic person, but, you know, I've watched their show a couple times where they try to figure out other people doing tricks and everything. And that was always interesting. You know, I think people actually watched that one on, unlike some other people's magic show. Yeah, I think so. One other thing that's interesting here is this is DreamScape releasing news about the operations of Rio. So we know they're taking over by the end of the year. It's good to see these little signs of them being in charge and taking this property past it. Caesars will not be involved. Did you see this crazy story about this man got arrested? He was cycling through casinos, up and down escalators, upstairs, just harassing people. And then apparently Metro traffic got word of him. They surveilled him for a while. And then they used air units to track him down. He ran away. And they threw the book at him. They charged him with like a million different things for doing this. And then, of course, his shirt was the best thing about all of it. Can you even show it? I don't even know if he could. I'll blur it out part of it. You know, and we talked about those the Amigos scooters going up and down escalators and stairs and, you know, how it was crazy during COVID. This is like next level. And it's kind of surprising. Nobody got hurt. But I mean, you know, dirt bikes are super loud. So I'm guessing people got a heads up that it was coming. But still to be riding it through those densely populated areas of people walking around and and stuff. It's just nuts. I mean, the world is crazy places these days. He probably thought he was going to be a nuisance, you know, and just make loud noise and piss people off. And now he's probably going to go to jail for quite a long time. I mean, they threw a lot, including like child endangerment. So, you know, not a good idea. Another crazy night on the strip. I mean, so many crazy things happen. This isn't even in like the top, I don't know, 100. We cover these things all the time. So he's got to try harder next time if he wants to make the hall of fame of weird things on the strip. For sure. All right. So there was this video on Twitter that surface of the wind ballroom all set up basically as a basketball gym. It looks really cool. And that's because the NBA summer league is in town, the seventh through the 17th of July. Those games are at the Thomas and Mac center. So you can, you know, see a lot of, you know, up and coming basketball players play there. And I guess they're practicing all around town. And to go with that, the NBA con is happening at Mandalay Bay, July 7th through the 9th. And this is like what you would expect. You can meet kind of retired players. It's everything basketball, right? They have all these different hoops set up. And I did one of these a long time ago. So yeah, it's a NBA weekend. It's always something happening in Vegas. But cool to see that wind ballroom converted into a basketball gym. Yeah. I mean, it's always, you wonder if it's easy for them or hard because you always hear like when they go into football stadiums stuff, the sightlines are tough to make shots and everything. So if you're practicing on that with weird sightlines and lower ceilings, does it mess up your game for when you go into the stadium and play? And it's interesting. But I didn't know that there was an NBA con. You know, you hear Comic Con and all that type of stuff. But a sporting one, it makes a lot of sense. And it's pretty cool. I don't know how long it's been going on. But it's awesome to have in Vegas if you're big into NBA. And you know, tickets didn't seem too terribly priced. You know, I saw the the super high VIP was sold out. But the the lower version is 250. It just seems like something really cool. If you're into that stuff and you want to see players and everything like the sports version of Comic Con, I wonder if like is there an NFL one or or other ones that be kind of curious to see? I know the NFL does versions of this like during Super Bowl week where they have the different booths set up all around the Super Bowl city. But I don't know if they have like a offseason con. I'd be interesting to find out. Let us know in the comments. Have you ever gone? Like to discuss it there. But yeah, NBA all over. So if you see a really tall person walking around the strip this weekend, they might be a famous basketball player. So did you see that Crockbirds has a membership club? So Resorts where we talked about their new, you know, transformation the way they're marketing themselves, something for everyone. Part of their commercial is, you know, rich old guys smoking cigars, mixed with young people in clubs. And now they have launched this membership club. And I didn't see like a lot of coverage of this, but it was in travel and leisure magazine. And they've invited 65 people into this membership club already with, you know, they're talking Fortune 500 execs, celebrities. They even set influencers in their respective local circles. So Mark and I are putting our names out there for an invitation to this club. So you know, we have a little bit of influence in this circle. But yeah, I mean, it's going to be this like super high end exclusive thing when you arrive by limo, the way they treat you on property, having all your preferences. So a thing for the super rich, but it was an interesting little quirk. I saw that they do have a version of this at some of their properties in Malaysia. So I guess it makes sense. Yeah, I wouldn't like to see a little bit more for like if you're 65 only people like have like a little lounge for them to hang out or something cool. And maybe they do, they just don't publicize it because it just sounds like what any high roller would get treated at their favorite property, you know, you're going to get picked up at the airport. I know this is with a Rolls Royce likely, but you know, limo, you're going to get seated, you know, wherever you want to sit at a restaurant and you're they're going to know what kind of food you want and stuff like that. Leave you little gifts in your room. So I mean, if you're Fortune 500 company CEO, I feel like this is just run of the mill. And I would like to see them do something a little bit more special, maybe just being known to be one of 65 is special enough. I don't know, but I'm kind of surprised there wasn't something like a secret passageway to this lounge that you can smoke cigars or something, you know, maybe there is and they're just not telling us about it. It's too exclusive. They get to use Bruno Mars overpriced stairs, right? Yeah, wrong property. But yeah, I mean, it's interesting. Clearly, I mean, maybe this is for very wealthy people or influential people who don't gamble a lot. They say very clearly that your card is on file. So everything you're doing, they're just charging, but it's just like the seamless experiences home away from home. So I mean, you're not talking about a product that's going out to thousands of people. So I'm sure there is a small group of people who are super affluent want this sort of whale treatment without, you know, all those sort of barriers. You can go to any hotel and put your credit card down and do all that, but to go to a place where they know all your preferences, do all that and maybe you don't gamble a lot. So yeah, it's an interesting thing. And of course, they're using those rules, Royce's for good stuff. The weirdest story of the week related to Vegas, this guy in the Netherlands in this like 500 person village in the Netherlands, they have this big parade. And he decided he wanted to build a casino themed float for his parade. And somehow he got a hold of Boulder station. He figured Boulder station on Boulder Highway was the casino to do it. And so in this little 500 person town, this team of people built a Boulder station parade float. And it won the first prize, of course. And yeah, the little Boulder Strip represented a halfway a crown around the world in the Netherlands, insane. It really, this was like the weirdest story I think we've come across this year. You know, just one that you picked Boulder station out of everything too, that you're doing it in the small town or like 35 people had to work on it for for months. And I can't even imagine the amount of money that was spent to do it all for this tiny little parade. You know, be one thing if you're like, I'm going to bring it down, you know, the Vegas Strip on on 4th of July or whatever. That would make somewhat sense where if it was this huge contest that you could win some money or something, but for somebody to pour this much passion into, you know, something around the world for this small town pulled by a tractor. It's so bizarre. It is really crazy. And you know, you could also see if they did the Belagio or one of the more iconic casinos that everybody even probably in a small town in other ones would know about. But to just pick a random local casino on the Boulder Strip, like they had to be like, what's Boulder station? But of course, that little casino, they were so proud to tweet this out. And I guess it's a win for local casinos, which often get overshadowed. I hope they sent them like a free trip or something from all this publicity. They've got an out of it. You know, hooked the guy up. He took care of you pretty well. Yeah, he sure did a great job there. So Bill Hornbuckle did an interview with an Nevada independent. And it started with like the talking about I-15 and how that's still such a huge bottleneck for customers. Hornbuckle talked about how he did the drive himself to experience it. So he's a man of the people, Mark. He sat in traffic eight hours to do it. I love what CEOs do. Those relatable type lines, you know, relate to their customers. I did it once. I know. Next time I took my helicopter. Yeah, next I'll never do that again. I just topped in the private jet after that. But he said that California, you know, remember in 2021 Gavin Newsom and Steve Syslach, they met at the border and they talked about adding a temporary third lane for the stretch just past state line. Apparently, California is still dragging their feet on that because of an environmental study. So he updated. I think that's going to happen next year. But there's still like 100 miles that need to be widened. So he talked about his sort of campaigning on a federal level because he's on this advisory board about doing that. He also said he didn't think Brightline would get built before 10 years. He said he thought it was on a 10 year time frame, which is a lot longer than what Brightline has been saying. I think they're talking having it opened in four or five years. Yeah, it just stinks that all this is getting held up because, you know, that land is in the middle of nothing. There's nothing there. It should be pretty easy. It's flat, you know, mostly flat. It doesn't seem like there'd be a lot of excavating to do. They should be able to widen a highway pretty easily. I don't know what type of, you know, tests they need to do. But in 10 years for a train, I feel like back in the gold rush, they would have had that thing up in like a year or less. There's no rules back then. They don't have to do testing or government stuff. Yeah, no environmental studies, any of that stuff. But some other stuff he was talking about was interesting. He talked about the New York casino, how they're trying to get that done in Yonkers, and hopefully we'll know by next year if they get the license. We've talked about competing projects like Caesars wants to build one in Times Square. There's a few other competing casino projects. And I think there's only going to be three licenses in New York State. Talked about Macao saying that they're basically back to 2019 economic levels with only 60% of the people, meaning on spending, people are far outspending in Macao compared to pre-pandemic. And that's very similar to what we saw here. And I saw that in person when I was there a month and a half ago, you know, it was just packed. And people were, you know, it was very lively compared to what I thought it would be. And then he also talked about obviously Osaka, how they're going to be moving forward. They're figuring out the latest development plan, getting all the contract signed. And then Dubai, I think we briefly mentioned that on the show. They're Dubai Project, which is going to have like an area set aside for a casino, because casinos are illegal there, but they're hoping, I guess, to get the Emirates to pass, allow it for legal gambling. But it's going to have 1200 rooms, ARIA, MGM, and Bellagio brands under one roof in Dubai, maybe with a casino, maybe without. So a lot of interesting things for MGM coming up. But I am glad Bill Hornbuckle took the I-15 once, you know, so he feels our pain. Yeah, that's a lot outlay that they have going on. And you know, that's part of the reasons they were, you know, selling some things, selling the land out from under their casinos in Vegas, so they could build up a war chest for this stuff. The Dubai one is really intriguing to me, because they're taking a bit of a gamble, you know, trying it like building this thing, hoping for a casino to come. And this is going to be a massive resort. And I know Dubai is a big tourist spot. And a lot of people go there and will spend a lot of money, you know, for luxury. So they could still tap into that without the casino, but, you know, we've never seen that level of expertise from MGM to cater to that type of setting. You know, you look at the Bellagio, it's not really run all that well for a high-end property. You know, if it was win or somebody like that, I could see it fitting more. So I'm kind of curious how this plays out and if they can fit into that mold in that area and who's going to manage it for them, because I don't think they can handle it and be at that level that you would need to be at to make that work. Yeah, one hand, if this goes well, this could be their first foray into really just hospitality without casinos or building big resorts without a casino in a lot of other places. But to your point, they aren't really synonymous with world-class luxury in their properties. Now, I've heard MGM Macau does reach to those levels. I haven't personally stayed there. Based on my visits there, I would say it absolutely is a top-scale luxury property. Unlike what you see here, I would say certainly even above Bellagio. I think maybe we could see that on an international level, but I think 1200 rooms is a huge hotel. So I think the scale of it might allow them to make the money that they need with or without the casino. But clearly with the casino planned in there, maybe they think they can change the government's mind. I think Caesar's has a Caesar's palace there as well. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, it looks from the renderings and everything. It looks like it's going to be beautiful whenever it's done. And I like that they took three of their more known properties and brought a little bit at each one to there. So it'd be kind of like a mini Vegas, you know, all on top of each other, which will be cool to check out for sure. Yeah, the Aria brand and the Bellagio brands finally making it overseas, not just MGM, because that's what they've really used is the MGM brand everywhere. Thank you for listening to the MTM Vegas podcast. Don't forget to check us out on YouTube where we release the show twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. YouTube.com forward slash miles to memories and all of our Vegas content can be found at MTMVagus.com as posts, podcasts, videos, see you there. Thanks again for listening. Talk to you next time.