MIKE WEATHERFORD:
Seats aplenty with opening of two shows
What are you doing July 15?
Why? No special reason. It's not like I know where I'll be that night either.
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But that Saturday comes well after the grand opening galas for Cirque du Soleil's "Love" and "Phantom -- The Vegas Spectacular." I figured it would be a good, random night to check ticket availability on the Strip.
You see, the new Beatles-themed Cirque adds another 2,013 seats to the market for every show. With 10 performances a week, that's 20,130 new tickets selling at an average of $110.75.
"Phantom" also plans 10 weekly shows. With 1,815 seats, that's another 18,150 tickets each week at an average price of $112.50.
So, with two big new titles adding more than 38,000 seats each week, what happens to the other shows? For that matter, what happens to the new ones?
Hence, an unscientific exploration. Show attendance is closely guarded, but anyone can poke around on the Internet -- and I don't even have to be sneaky to do it at work. So I picked July 15 to check for a pair of tickets, using links on each casino's official Web site.
Well, neither "Love" nor "Phantom" were sold out yet. Surprisingly, the only "Sorry" prompt I got was for $125 seats at "O," the Cirque show that opened in 1998. Downsizing to $99, I could at least sit on the third-to-last row. No danger of getting wet there.
That's about as good as I could do at "Love," too. For the 7:30 p.m. show, $125 would put me on row O, while $69 would get EE, the second-to-last row.
At least on this night, that made the Beatles more popular than the Phantom. Take that same $125 over to The Venetian, and you could get "Phantom" seats on Row H in a side section for the 7 p.m. show.
Wondering what "Love" will do to Mirage neighbor Danny Gans, or to "Mystere" next door at Treasure Island? Well, at Gans you could sit pretty far to one side on Row B for $100 (not the second row, but after double letters AA-KK). I'm not sure what to make of "Mystere." The $75 seats in Row KK looked pretty bad. But for $20 more, you could get an awesome seat in Row C.
For Cirque's "Ka," $125 would put you on Row M, pretty far off to one side. For the Cirque-like "Le Reve," you could get Row M in-the-round for $100.
You'd also have easy access to Broadway musicals. A $110 ticket for "Hairspray" would put you on Row D, while the same price for "Mamma Mia!" put you front and center on Row A.
Do you think there are too many expensive tickets for too many shows?
Well, you know July is slow. And they tell us most people don't buy ahead, waiting until they hit town to pick what show to see.
That might be smart. For some of these titles, plus 50-odd shows I didn't check, the half-price outlets for unsold tickets could be busy that day.
