Nightclub competition serious business

Light has gone dark, and Jodi Myers' attention has turned to ice scoopers.

"Which ice scoop is better?" she wonders. "Which holds the perfect amount of ice and actually scoops it in there the best and looks the best?"

Sweating the details, obsessing over silverware, this is what running a high-end nightspot in Las Vegas is all about nowadays.

As managing partner of forthcoming mega-club The Bank, which will open next year in the spot that Light used to occupy in the Bellagio, Myers is attuned to nuance and minutiae, as if she were constructing a multimillion-dollar house of cards.

And in a way she is.

The upscale nightclub scene has become so competitive in recent years, that even the most successful properties have seen their life spans shorten in a near-constant rush of one-upmanship.

Light was open for six years, and was still a solid draw, but there's beginning to be a built-in ceiling for these ventures.

"If you want to stay cutting edge, I don't know how long you can have one place, really," Myers says. "I don't know if you can have a place be open for 10 years. In the past there have been places like that, but the trend is people wanting the new."

It's a curious, somewhat perilous business model, where time is on no one's side and sustaining success for longer than a few years is starting to become an afterthought.

Of course, there are a few exceptions.

MGM Grand's Studio 54, which helped spark the surge in upscale nightlife in '97, is still in the game, though it's seen the winds change toward increasing elaborate, expensive and exclusive clubs that cater to a smaller and smaller clientele.

"Nightclubs now are such a business, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing I'm not sure, but I feel sometimes that the party is secondary," says Studio 54 General Manager Anthony Olheiser. "It's wrangling as many celebrities as possible, and sometimes that experience isn't always so positive. When you lose focus of the party and you're so focused on the business, I think that can go hand in hand with expiration dates."

Still, there continues to be a boom in ritzy properties, with the recent opening of LAX in the Luxor, Blush at Wynn Las Vegas and the newly announced 40/40 Club at The Palazzo, which is set to open in December.

The costs of these properties continues to spiral upward, with some of the newer entries coming with a $20 million price tag, an increasingly steep escalation that could form a bubble in the near future.

Is it an inevitability then, that some of these caviar dreams will eventually become a nightmare?

"The costs are so high, but the clubs are packed every single day," Olheiser says. "You have to think about the oversaturation, but as long as the people still come and fill all these clubs, I don't know if it's going to stop any time soon."

Jason Bracelin's "Sounding Off" column appears on Tuesdays. Contact him at 383-0476 or e-mail him at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com.