Two Way Hard Three | Las Vegas Casino & Design Blog

Another case of a corporation playing both sides of the fence to cover their butts. No matter whose running for office, they conveniently donate to both sides of the fence to gain favor no matter who wins.

It's one thing to give money to both sides and of course many corporations do just that but it sounds like in this case she really put in hours to work on the campaign.

Elaine Wynn has been embracing my change for years.

Funny comment, yet so true. My wife and I always held the opinion never to play at places that have a major addition under construction. Theres a perception that they tighten the slots to pay for it. Steve to Elaine, "Honey, if you see the boys in slot management in the hallway, tell them to see me about tigthening them up a bit, Encore is 300 million over budget"

While its just a perception, our experience is we never seem to win at places under construction.

From my perspective there seems to be zero buzz about the opening of Encore. It seems like there is even less buzz for Encore then there was for Palazzo last year. Well that is just what I sense maybe I am wrong.

I'm curious why you say that - can you expand on that a little? What did you hear re: Palazzo that you're not hearing this time around?

For me, the Palazzo opening was totally silent.

Now, it does seem that Encore's opening will be more low-key than WLV but they're going to be doing some TV advertising, starting today and it seems to me that Vegas enthusiasts and certainly the bloggers are more excited about Encore than they were about Palazzo (me included).

I found a new interview with Steve Wynn. Here is the link:
http://www.fox5vegas.com/video/18026209/index.html

Palazzo had some buzz locally. Encore doesn't have any, but I chalked that up to their attitudes. The Wynns seem from the outside looking in to think of themselves as celebrities that are larger than Vegas stature (they aren't.) Why waste your time with little people in the local media when the New York Times and CBS are beating down your door?

Hunter, I cannot remember seeing any publicity for Encore on tv or in any travel magazines. Maybe it is going to start now. I remember lots of tv ads for Wynn when it was opening. With regards to the Palazzo, your right there was not much buzz for it, but outside of the Vegas blogs I just don't sense Encore having much more buzz then Palazzo. I think both properties have suffered in publicity because they are often marketed as simply additions to exisiting properties. I do think Encore is going to be an outstanding resort but of course it is opening at a bad time. In addition and I know this means nothing but the people I talk to who visit Vegas are not tremendously excited about it. I just don't get the sense of alot of people being really eager to visit Vegas to see the new Encore, but like I said I could be wrong.

You may be right... TV ads are supposed to start tonight. We'll see if that amps it up a few notches.

As someone who posts/lurks on several messageboards, I can tell you that the vast majority of frequent Vegas visitors have no idea that Encore is essentially its own property, will be all "suites", and will have a casino vastly different to what has previously been done in Las Vegas. What little hype Palazzo had was largely in part to a different building facade than that of Venetian's.

In all fairness, they've already got the magazine ads, a firm opening date, a Ratner-directed commercial, and countless superlatives from Wynn interviews. The difference now is that the media isn't making the same ridiculous claims they were for WLV. Who could forget, "Sold out until 2007", "Guest can lease a Ferrari during the duration of their stay", and "Two story cabanas are air-conditioned".

I am guessing the new TV ad, will be mostly regional, and not national. This was the case with Wynn LV. If any of you are able to capture it, please post it. I was hoping it would make it to youtube, but no such luck as of yet.

The LA Times has been running half-page fly out flash ads on their homepage touting Encore for the last coupla weeks. I'm guessing that the hype machine starts now... they probably had to wait for Gans to exit Mirage.

Brian, I successfully downloaded the Encore ad (as well as the original Wynn Super Bowl ad) using a utility called "Flash Video Downloader 2" for Mac. I'll not post them here because of copyrights, and because the Encore ad (which is followed by Steve's pitch) is 25MB. But give it a try....(and if you really want, I'll email it.)