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Some hometown youths, The Killers, have snagged a baby residency at Caesars Palace.
The Killers will play the Colosseum on eight dates in August, 2024. Here are the specific dates, as we’re nothing if not thorough: August. 14, 16, 17, 21, 23, 24, 28, 30.
That’s the whole announcement, but keep reading for some inside baseball about the recent entertainment executive purge at Caesars Entertainment.
The Killers are Brandon Flowers, Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer and Ronnie Vannucci Jr., exactly none of whom we could pick out of a police line-up.
The band is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its debut album, “Hot Fuss,” this year, so they’ll perform the record front to back in their shows at Caesars Palace.
We don’t really know too much about The Killers, except for that one song, which we love. Bonus: Vegas locations featured in the video.
Oh, and “Mr. Brightside.”
Mainly, we know The Killers from their light show at Fremont Street Experience, which featured “Mr. Brightside,” “When You Were Young” and “The Man.”
Yes, that’s past tense. The license expired, so the Killers light show isn’t currently played at Fremont Street Experience. We’d love to see the residency change that. It was an eye-popper.
We also like this video from The Killers because of all the Las Vegas.
A fun fact from Wikipedia, “The band’s name is derived from a logo on the bass drum of a fictitious band portrayed in the music video for the New Order song ‘Crystal.’”
Also in Wikipedia, “Keuning and Flowers played their first live show together at an open mic night at the Cafe Espresso Roma in Las Vegas in January 2002.”
This Wikipedia is amazing. We’re surprised it’s not more popular.
Wikipedia also says, “While walking through a Virgin Megastore in Las Vegas in 2002, Flowers noticed the album artwork on the then-new Elvis Presley compilation album ‘ELV1S: 30 No. 1 Hits.’ This gave him the inspiration to use a marquee sign motif as the band’s logo.”
Plus, “The band fired manager Braden Merrick in 2006.”
Anyway, thanks, Wikipedia.
What Wikipedia doesn’t know is all the juicy inside scoop about Las Vegas entertainment! Nobody does, really, because Las Vegas doesn’t have entertainment journalism. Yes, it’s shocking, given the amount of entertainment available in Las Vegas. Las Vegas doesn’t have restaurant journalism, either. Luckily, Las Vegas doesn’t have many restaurants.
Anyway, there’s a lot going on inside the world of entertainment at Caesars Entertainment. A “shake-up” you might call it. Or “kerfuffle.”
Ever since Eldorado Resorts and Caesars Entertainment merged in 2020, there’s been a lot of scrutiny of the goings on, including in the company’s entertainment division. Over time, lots of folks had insinuated themselves into the culture and business of Caesars Entertainment, carving out fiefdoms and draining millions from the company with crazy contracts where executives got financial pieces of talent bookings and other business endeavors and partnerships. We have no idea if those arrangements were shady, but they sure sound questionable to a layperson.
Anyway, two executives basically ran the show at Caesars Entertainment, Michael Gruber and Jason Gastwirth.
Gruber has a long and colorful history in Hollywood and Las Vegas. He got into a beef with George Clooney, losing his job at Creative Artists Agency, back in the day.
After Caesars leaders started questioning the legacy contracts of entertainment executives, Gruber parted ways with the company. Now, he’s Venetian’s chief content officer, and runs Voltaire, a new entertainment venue.
Jason Gastwirth, it appears, also didn’t appreciate the interest in the complexities of his contract, so he resigned. He started with Caesars Entertainment in 2011.
We broke the story Gastwirth was leaving the company. Naturally, Johnny Kleptometes “broke-broke” the story in the Las Vegas Review-Journal the next day.
First word Jason Gastwirth, Caesars Entertainment’s longtime President of Entertainment, will not stay on when his contract expires. Industry insider notes, “They are basically outsourcing their entertainment to Live Nation at this point.”
— Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) December 13, 2023
We were also the first to share news Caesars Entertainment was cleaning house following Gastwirth’s departure.
Following Jason Gastwirth’s exit as Caesars Ent. President of Entertainment, major shake-up (“restructuring”) happening in the company’s entertainment division—emblematic of the evolution of the casino entertainment landscape, largely unreported as Las Vegas has no entertainment…
— Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) January 5, 2024
Johnny Kleptometes miraculously reported the story later the same day. He’s just that good.
What our “paper of record” didn’t report were “insights,” “context” or “anything but a superficial, kiss-assy understanding of, well, anything.”
The entertainment department was purged because it was institutionalized WTF, a remnant of a time when nobody was paying much attention and executives exploited their positions and small print in their contracts for personal financial gain.
One insider said these contracts were unlike any they’d ever seen. Red flag much?
Basically, top executives bamboozled the former Caesars Entertainment regime into thinking the company would never have gotten their lucrative headliners without their hands-on expertise and connections. Or, what’s known in the industry as “complete and utter bullshit.”
How it really works is a company like Live Nation comes in, offers up a selection of available artists, and executives pick the ones they’d like to host in their venues.
Caesars Entertainment’s entertainment is doing just fine, and the reality is superstars don’t choose venues because of “suits.” They follow the money.
Caesars Entertainment is now positioned to save a ton of the aforementioned cabbage with zero disruption to its very successful venues. Including the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, where The Killers will have a residency in August 2024. See what we did there?
The Killers have come home, and we trust the residency can be extended if ticket sales go well. There’s some kind of pre-sale going on, but we don’t really do Ticketmaster. The only tickets we could find were $955 each, so we have to assume that’s a typo. You’ll figure it out.
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