6 reasons why mixing club, show crowds is harder than you think

Come for the show, stay for the party.

What are you, crazy?

The ‘Baz’ show opening this week is the latest attempt at an idea that sounds so natural, it should be a no-brainer.

On the three nights the Light nightclub at Mandalay Bay is in action — Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays — those who buy tickets for the new cabaret tribute to the musical movies of director Baz Luhrmann won’t be shooed out when the show is over, but invited to stay for the club action.

A cool idea, but hardly a new one.

The new venture is a promising and natural marriage between Cirque du Soleil’s new theatrical division and the club it operates at Mandalay Bay. “We have this incredible club with this incredible investment” in light and sound, “and we’re dark for much of the week,” noted Cirque executive Scott Zeiger.

But trying to get ticket-buyers to hang out and mingle with the club audience itself? It’s an idea that has been around so long, it proves just how tough this fish is to land.

Way back in 2001, when people still cared about Carmen Electra, she was set to star in a show called “Lumiere” in a hybrid show/club space at the Aladdin. As it was described at the time, “the audience will be encouraged to stick around to party, and to watch the retractable seating fold into the walls to reveal the dance floor.”

Alas, the Aladdin went bankrupt instead (it’s now Planet Hollywood Resort) and neither the club or show ever opened.

Since then, the two have been no easier to combine. Here are at least five attempts (or non-attempts) that come to mind:

1. Magician Steve Wyrick misread both the club and show market in 2007 with what was touted as a $35 million venue housing both his theater and Triq after-hours club in the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood. But the only velvet-rope line was for his bankruptcy creditors.

2. Beacher’s Madhouse at the MGM Grand is a club with a stage that occasionally breaks out with sideshow performances. But a long-promised, early evening ticket called “Fun — The Show” has yet to happen.

3. Rose.Rabbit.Lie also offers environmental variety acts at the Cosmopolitan. But a ticketed show there called “Vegas Nocturne” lasted only a few months and ended in litigation between the hotel and show producer.

4. Since Luhrmann’s most successful movie is about the Paris can-can club Moulin Rouge, it’s fitting that burlesque clubs danced up close to the hybrid in Las Vegas. While they weren’t separately ticket shows, the thump of modern dance music did stop for live performances at Ivan Kane’s Forty Deuce and, in the same space in Mandalay Bay’s retail mall, 1923 Bourbon & Burlesque.

After a year though, the latter dropped club has “Burlesque” from its name and a well-touted celebrity branding with Holly Madison ended in litigation.

5. And sometimes they just don’t even try. The long-running Riviera drag show “An Evening at La Cage” came from the 1973 movie “La Cage aux Folles,” which was about a drag nightclub.

After its many years at the Riviera, the Vegas “La Cage” briefly resurfaced in 2011 in a beautiful room at the Four Queens, which been built out to be a second location of Los Angeles area rock club The Canyon Club.

But instead of going all out with envionmental entertainers and drag servers, the audience filed in at the last minute, plopped down in straight-back chairs, and waited in the dark, quiet room for the show to start. At least there was a cash bar.

But two stars of “Baz” say the merger worked when their show played the DBA nightclub in West Hollywood.

“All of the cast members would come out and mingle with the audience,” says Ginifer King. “The party turned from Baz Luhrmann’s world into the underground world of a club, and it was seamless.”

“We’ve been doing it for five years now,” agrees Constantine Rousouli. “We drink and have fun with our friends and mingle. It’s one ongoing experience, which is great.”