LAS VEGAS: It may be the most expensive hotel-casino
in history, but the $2.7 billion Wynn Las Vegas is finding out
that when it comes to its marquee show, money can't buy love.
Flamboyant productions have long been seen by investors and
observers as contributing to the success of Las Vegas properties.
Hotel visionary Steve Wynn, chief executive of Wynn Resorts
Ltd., has maintained when he opened such famous Vegas resorts
as Bellagio and The Mirage that the show is a linchpin.
But Wynn's aquatic ''Le Reve," which is conservatively estimated
to have cost $90 million -- including a 2,087-seat showroom
with a 1-million-gallon swimming pool -- has been a giant belly
flop.
Since its April 28 opening, the show has been so poorly received
by critics as well as the public that a plan to feature two
performances a night has been postponed.
While Wynn officials say they are not worried, questions have
been raised, from the Vegas Strip to Wall Street, about whether
the nascent Wynn brand would be damaged if ''Le Reve" were to
fail.
While major Vegas shows usually do not collapse on bad reviews
the way Broadway shows do, the situation is so dire that some
Wall Street analysts say the show's woes could further sink
Wynn Resorts stock, which has tumbled recently, mainly on concern
that the Chinese gambling market Wynn is entering next year
isn't as strong as expected.
''It would be an utter disaster if this show can't be fixed,"
said an analyst at a major Wall Street investment house, who
asked to remain anonymous because of company policy.
''Le Reve" is responsible for far more than bringing in an
estimated $250,000 in ticket revenues per show.
Big Las Vegas spectacles are ''really a mousetrap to attract
people to the property and keep them there and get national
and international attention to the property," said Felix Rappaport,
chief operating officer of the Luxor Hotel- Casino. ''Plus,
when you build these made-to-order theaters, there aren't many
outs. You can't just close it and say, 'That was a bad idea.'
"
''Le Reve," French for ''the dream," is a surreal show with
70 actors in skimpy bathing suits who dance, swim, and do acrobatics
in and around the performance pool.
Produced by Franco Dragone, who created several of Cirque
du Soleil's biggest hits before leaving the Montreal-based troupe
in 2002 to create Celine Dion's Vegas show, ''Le Reve" borrows
many conceits from his prior Vegas work in the dream-themed
''Mystere" at the Treasure Island Hotel-Casino and the aquatic
''O" at the Bellagio. Several reviewers compared ''Le Reve"
unfavorably with those previous successes, with Los Angeles
Times reviewer Lewis Segal asking, ''Steve Wynn doesn't have
knockoffs in his art gallery, so why put them in his showroom?"
It's also, at $121 a seat, the most expensive minimum in Vegas.
In the weeks leading up to the debut, Wynn compared his luxurious
217-acre, 49-story casino-hotel to the pyramids of Egypt and
called it ''more complex than any other structure in the history
of the world."
''You would've expected with all that hype that the show would
be stronger out of the box and it wasn't; it's very unraveled,"
said Anthony Curtis, publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor travel
newsletter. ''People are walking out of the thing, shaking their
heads."
Wynn officials are taking the long view. ''There is the reception
of the theater audience and then there's the perception in the
marketplace," Dragone spokesman Peter Wagg said. ''What I know
is that people love the show."
Wynn spokeswoman Denise Randazzo said Dragone is making changes
in response to audience reaction, although she also insisted
that there was no problem and that the resort will offer two
shows nightly again once a major ''awareness" campaign kicks
off. She asserted that Dragone's earlier shows, ''Mystere" and
''O," also took time to settle in.
Even as Randazzo and Wagg tried to project optimism, one Wall
Street analyst whose firm underwrote the resort acknowledged
the concern.
''It's disappointing," said J.P. Morgan analyst Harry Curtis,
who added that the property has otherwise exceeded expectations
for revenue. ''It doesn't live up to the quality of the rest
of the hotel. The 'Le Reve' show may require more than just
tinkering to fix, but even if it were to have to go into a period
of redesign, that wouldn't meaningfully impact the [overall]
numbers."
Randazzo said she is not surprised by nitpicking, given the
resort's grand scale. ''I think whenever you have an undertaking
like this and spend $2.7 billion, you do leave yourself somewhat
vulnerable for criticism," she said
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