Best Outdoor Sign
RIO
3700 W. Flamingo Road
This category has become another tradition for the Rio, which lights up the sky for the eighth straight year. The staff can't read the readers' minds, but it seems to us the newer resorts just aren't trying very hard. Turning away from the explosions of color the Rio sign perfects, they offer staid European columns and drive-in movie screens of LED lights. Paris finished second.
Our Pick:
LADY LUCK
206 N. Third St.
Despite such monikers as "the Neon City," a downtown redevelopment project called Neonopolis and a certain daily newspaper's Neon section, the neon signs of Las Vegas are an endangered species. The graceful old-school art of the Lady Luck signs -- the ones on the north and south end of the lower hotel towers to the east -- are what we'd like to see make a comeback. Even the simpler, bolder hotel name spelled out on the taller tower reminds us who we always need the help of when we enter the Spaghetti Bowl.
