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FEATURES
3215 S. Rancho Drive, area15.com
Area15 celebrates its first anniversary of bringing experiential art to the masses
BY MATT KELEMEN
Over its first year, Area15 already offered an array of immersive experiences that play with perceptions and stimulate the senses. It’s now added Liftoff, a new outdoor attraction that allows up to 16 people to get high in one session. The ballooning experience provides a view of Las Vegas that can only be had at the magical mall just west of the Strip, joining Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart, Lost Spirits Distillery and The Beast by Todd English as major draws and giving visitors another reason to return for deeper dives into the multiversal destination.
The triple-helix tower that ostensibly prevents Liftoff from ascending into the
The Portal sky with its gondola full of passengers is exterior to Area15’s exit doors and can be accessed immediately by making a left U-turn upon entering the building. Turn right instead to enter Lost Spirits, an arena-sized distillery and adult amusement park that could have sprung from Willy Wonka’s pure imagination.
It might be best to promenade around the bi-level building first and take in the entirety of Area15’s offerings. Easily accessible virtual reality experiences that don’t require substantial time commitments or complicated suits—from flying like a bird to indoor golf—await. English’s Beast Breath Smoke House menu offers dry rub brisket, ribs and a half-pound hot link served with five fiery sauces. Spicy Korean hot dogs and a five-patty cheeseburger called The Kraken provide incentives for a follow-up visit.
Head up the main staircase and turn left to go back to the future or right to enter a pair of infinity-oriented installations. Both Museum Fiasco’s Cluster exhibit and Wink World’s walk-through funhouse make use of mirrors, illumination and music to expand and distort audiovisual perception, as reflective surfaces stretch space and strobe effects meddle with motion.
The left turn leads to the Emporium Arcade Bar, which resembles an early ’80s recreation room with gloriously rundown pinball machines and vintage arcade games. DJs control the audio at night, but Emporium is open for Skee-Ball sharpening sessions beginning at 2 p.m. Downstairs, Oddwood functions as a center bar and begins serving craft cocktails at noon beneath the canopy of a digital forest.
It’s a good place to pause before entering immersive experiences inside The Portal dedicated to Van Gogh and Klimt or hitting Omega Mart and getting lost in surreal wormholes and warrens. Perusing sardonically conceived but legitimate consumer goods (impulse buys at checkout include packs of Doomed Exploration Arctic Madness chewing gum and Healthy Wolf Lonely Hiker Protein Feast dog food) can easily take up an hour of time, but there are several pseudo-secret passages that lead to Meow Wolf’s alternate dimension. A guided tour of the conspiracy underlying it is available. Prepare to spend hours unraveling the mystery.
Liftoff is last on the counterclockwise stroll around Area15, but it literally rises above the rest of the experiences—130 feet to be exact. Once the balloon reaches its summit, the gondola rotates 360 degrees, enabling a one-of-a-kind panoramic view of the Strip and greater Las Vegas. It’s so safe even people who fear heights have a good time, as long as they don’t look straight down.
Liftoff
Museum Fiasco
KÀ remains a marvel of engineering a fter 17 y ea r s By Nina King
So, you have your tickets for KÀ.
You know it’s the only Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas which has a proper storyline—a pair of royal twins have been separated during a devastating attack, and each is on a separate comingof-age journey which will lead them to their destiny. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
But it’s one thing to be sitting in a plush seat in the elaborate KÀ Theatre for 90 minutes, watching a massive bird swoop downward with several acrobats on its back, or seaside characters magnified to huge size frolicking on a sandy beach, or two warring sides scrambling up a cliffside, or an enormous wheel with flames shooting out. It’s quite another to realize what it actually takes to ensure that the production runs smoothly throughout the entire show.
The weight of the Tatami Deck in pounds
If you want to truly understand it, a look around the stage will leave you even more in awe of the complexities that go into each performance.
As you walk into the theater, it immediately seems so different from a normal theater. Sure, there are rows and rows of raked seating, but there are also many massive columns that seem to resemble some sort of sci-fi movie set. In each of those columns, connected by catwalks, you’ll find multiple lights. Looking at the stage from the audience area, you’ll see many tiers of catwalks and multiple floors on the back and in the wings of the stage area. Turn around and you’ll see floors curving around the back walls of the theater, filled with equipment; they are dedicated to sound and lighting.
If you head down to the curved edge of the stage, that’s where you’ll really start noticing the difference from a traditional theater. The edge of the stage, called the boardwalk, is several feet wide and looks like wooden planks.
During one recent afternoon, Jim Moran, KÀ’s technical director, who is in charge of many of the theater’s systems,
went over some of the more amazing facets of the area, including the sheer size of the pit. Glance over the edge—it’s 50 feet down. Look up—it’s 89 feet. And it seems like there’s something going on at every level (which there is). Moran points out five separate lifts used during performances in different areas of the pit, including one that is directly in front of the edge.
It’s frequently been said that the biggest character in KÀ is the Sand Cliff deck, an incredible moving platform that stands nearly vertical during some scenes. And it certainly dominates the scene before you. The deck itself weighs about 50 tons, and is 50 feet long, 25 feet wide and 6 feet deep, and is perched atop a gantry crane. The deck can rotate 360 degrees and tilt in all directions.
The hydraulic pistons, which move the stages, are “the longest in the world,” says Moran. There is also a power system built into the deck and lighting. Plus, there are areas which allow performers to appear from out of the stage. Video projection tiles allow different scenes to appear on the surface, from water to flame. It can also react to performers’ movements.
During the battle scene, when performers scale the vertical stage, they are actually making use of 80 pegs called rod actuators. Those give the performers handholds that are highly choreographed, not only when they appear but also when they disappear. Below the stage are two of the largest acrobatic nets in the world and one of the world’s largest airbags. It’s used in the climax, says Moran, and sits on top of the net so the artists slide off a deck and get in a nice little bounce. The Tatami deck is the second of KÀ’s moveable stages, a 30-foot square piece weighing in at 75,000 pounds that, Moran says, “comes out like a big sliding drawer. And it can come right up to the edges of the stage.” In 2008, the
Sand Cliff Deck and the Tatami Deck helped KÀ win a Thea Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement from the Themed Entertainment Association. In the wings, there’s a lot that goes on. Stage right are the elevators. During a performance, these are on a strict schedule (they have their own cue track), but at other times you can take them down to the lower levels, where the airbags are filled, or up, where you’ll find several floors and a huge array of systems and props. Depending on the time of day, you might see set pieces being removed or replaced on the Tatami Deck (the Wheel of Death is stored here), or a green cover put on to emulate nature during the forest scene. In another area, you’ll find a giant winch with cables snaking out of it around and behind the stage. “In the forest … the big red (column) is actually moved by this— that’s our biggest winch in the theater. It’s a counterweight system. That assists in moving arbors that are on the other side of the theater,” Moran says.
A row of white cabinets may remind you of heating or air-conditioning
MGM Grand 702.531.3826
systems, but they are actually used to house the server for the computers, which control much of the mechanical aspects of the show, which need to be timed to the absolute second. “So, all the moves of the lifts … everything is in our automation system. And everything is programmed. We don’t just kind of wing it. Everything has to be programmed,” says Moran.
Go further and you’ll find a massive bin, which is used to help filter the beach sand. That sand is actually cork, and it is put through multiple filters every day, which remove any and all metal, and make sure it is exactly the right size. It’s then moistened. Why? Because it’s not only more comfortable for the artists, but it also keeps down dust, which is important, since KÀ’s systems employ thousands of sensors that might be obscured otherwise. It also keeps a potential fire hazard out of the air, which is also important, as pyrotechnics light up several scenes in KÀ. That cleanliness extends to the entire backstage area.
You’ll also find storage areas for different acts throughout upper and lower levels. As Moran says, it’s all about what is needed, and where. For example, in the scene where the nanny nearly drowns, she comes down from the top level of the wing. “They come up here; and this is where they get attached, and load for that act. So, rather than bring the nanny costume up here every day for a specific thing (they store the costumes here) … In fact, they get clipped in. They have a harness with two swivels on it. That particular costume has cutouts.”
In every show, the leading lady or man has the backing of an entire cast, and KÀ is no exception. “So during a show we have about 110 backstage, all in all about 135, about 70 artists—a lot of people, and it’s just as choreographed backstage as it is onstage,” says Moran.
As you walk backstage, you’ll be struck by the fact that nearly every person is wearing a harness. And in fact, as you walk through the floors, you’ll see many areas where a worker can hook into. And just as the acrobats in the show rehearse their scenes, so, too, do the backstage crew; workers go through extensive training when they join the crew of KÀ; and they’ll go through that training for different areas and different jobs, from 10-14 days.
For Moran, who helped open the theater back in 2005, there’s one aspect that impresses him most. “Everybody comes together and works together to make it happen. I mean, all the technical stuff’s amazing and (we) have lots of buttons to push, but really none of it happens without everybody—the artists and technicians, the management—(it) takes a big group to pull this off.”
Number of speakers in the theater
BY MATT KELEMEN
Widespread Panic brings its classic jam band sound to Vegas
When Jerry Garcia died on Aug. 9, 1995, the world stopped spinning for their legions of followers. A new generation of Deadheads had sprung up in the ’90s, and they weren’t ready for the culture that had evolved during the Dead’s 30-year career to be extinguished. They had begun to follow bands like Widespread Panic, who would not take the stage again for a month after Garcia’s death. They closed their Sept. 8 set in Raleigh, N.C., with Dead live chestnut “Turn on Your Lovelight,” paying tribute to their predecessors and illuminating the way toward the future.
Thirty-six years after four Athens, Ga., musicians played their first show as Widespread
Panic, there is no end of the road in sight. Their origin began five years earlier, before Athens was best known as the spawning ground for “college rock” bands, right around the time R.E.M. released their first single. Guitarists John Bell and Michael Houser were University of Georgia students and aspiring singer/songwriters who formed a bond that grew into a band when they were joined by bassist Dave Schools.
Drummer Todd Nance was invited to play with them at a 1986 charity event, which would be the first time they used the name inspired by Houser’s anxiety attacks. They set about developing their improvisational sound at parties and clubs, but Panic didn’t go for a Summer of Love sound, and they were distinctively different than the quirky bands in the Athens scene. The Allman Brothers music was in the band’s blood.
Panic played anywhere and everywhere, and like the Dead they allowed taping of their shows. By 1991, they were signed by Capricorn Records, the label that discovered the Allmans, and by the time keyboardist John “JoJo” Hermann was enlisted, they had reached the stage where they could join forces with Phish and Blues Traveler for the inaugural H.O.R.D.E tour in 1992. By the end of that first tour, the jam band community had solidified and Widespread Panic graduated to headlining outdoor venues on their own.
Houser died in 2002 of pancreatic cancer, and Nance would leave for personal reasons in 2014 (he passed away in 2020). Panic marched on with lead guitarist George McConnell, who would be replaced by Jimmy Herring in 2006. Herring had played with
the Allmans and bands with former Grateful Dead members, while current drummer Duane Trucks is a nephew of Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks and sibling to virtuoso slide guitarist Derek.
Widespread Panic is stronger than ever. They tour less in favor of multidate engagements at places like their annual Panic en la Playa in Mexico and the Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. The granola-and-patchouli stereotype of flower children twirling in ecstasy to extended musical explorations still exists, but Widespread Panic’s music is for everyone.
Virgin Hotels Las Vegas March 11-13, 4+ starting at $69, axs.com
Elisa Furr captures Celine Dion’s persona in ‘Legends in Concert’
Las Vegas singer Elisa Furr reached a new level of international exposure recently when she won big on the first season of Jimmy Fallon’s Clash of the Cover Bands reality music competition series on the E! Network. Renowned as one of the most impressive Celine Dion tribute artists performing anywhere, Furr then took the perfect position in the new “Legendary Divas” version of Legends in Concert at the Tropicana Las Vegas, where she gets to blow audiences away every night alongside other terrific vocalists honoring the music of Cher, Lady Gaga and Adele. Furr first performed in Legends in 2015, but has actually been part of the local entertainment community for more than two decades, including a stint as a showgirl in the iconic Jubilee! at Bally’s.
What was that spark that inspired you to begin performing the music of Celine Dion?
I always say that it found me, I wasn’t looking for it. I was performing in the house band at a cigar lounge at Bally’s, and the people there were always talking and screaming and clapping, because it was that kind of place. But then I would sing (“My Heart Will Go On”) from Titanic, and it would get completely quiet; the first time, people just wouldn’t speak. I’d finish the song, and everybody would put $20 in the tip jar. And at that time, I had gotten pregnant, so the timing was perfect because when I (wasn’t performing) I put this tribute show together, created the charts, and studied her movements and started buying the costumes, then after the baby came and I did the mommy thing, I started heading out and doing concerts. And I got booked immediately because there aren’t a lot of live-singing Celine tributes.
And now you have rejoined the cast of Legends in Concert, certainly where you want to be if you’re a tribute artist in Las Vegas.
I had been auditioning for Legends for years before they hired me. I had done a Faith Hill (tribute) before. I was just so green, and so used to being a showgirl and the different ways of that kind of performance. But they gave me a chance and they’re my family now.
Tropicana Las Vegas ticketmaster.com
By Brock Radke
Is there extra energy with this “Legendary Divas” show because Celine and Adele were both unable to start their new Las Vegas residency shows as planned?
I’m sure that’s (true), but I think more than anything it’s four really strong vocalists who are known for hundreds of hits, artists all considered to be powerhouse vocalists, and the fact that they’re all female is another strength. There are so many factors that make this show special, but, yes, people are going crazy. We’re getting standing, roaring ovations every night.
As a veteran performer, what was the Clash of the Cover Bands TV experience like for you?
Well, everybody had their challenges during the pandemic, including me. When I finally got there, it had been 18 months since I sang (with an audience). It was like, is anything going to come out? But it was exhilarating and exciting and terrifying at the same time, and I had no idea I was going to win. I got a standing ovation from (judges) Adam Lambert and Meghan Trainor, so that was an emotional experience, and all positive.
It’s such a cool concept for a TV show and it really elevates and enlightens the idea of a tribute artist, which is a big thing in Las Vegas but not necessarily anywhere else.
That’s true, unless you live in Vegas or one of the places where this type of entertainment happens, the idea can be confusing. Not everyone understands that this is our entire life’s work, putting your everything into the costumes and studying the music and performances, and what type of skillset goes into this.
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