The shrimp cocktail that made national news.
Golden Gate Hotel & Casino had served a 99-cent shrimp cocktail for 50 years. It was a Las Vegas institution. I raised the price to $1.99.
I got literal death threats. CNN covered it. Fox covered it. USA Today ran it. The “assault on Las Vegas tradition” generated millions of dollars in free media coverage, drove record foot traffic to downtown Las Vegas, and the property became profitable for the first time in years.
The shrimp cocktail was never the point. The publicity was the point. Knowing the difference is the job.
Understand what you are actually selling.
$200 in paint. $0 in billboards. Millions in free coverage.
Hooters Casino Hotel had been through multiple bankruptcies. There was no marketing budget. Not a reduced budget. Zero. I created the “Month of Giving” campaign, convinced twelve media companies to donate billboard space across the Las Vegas Valley, and got $300,000 in video production donated at no cost. Total spend: zero dollars. The property became profitable within twelve months.
A year later, MGM announced they were charging for parking. The next morning I sent Hooters girls in hardhats and construction gear into our parking lot with paint rollers. They painted FREE PARKING in giant letters across the asphalt. Our lot sat directly below 2,500 rooms at MGM Grand. Every news channel showed up. Every casino blog covered it. Every travel website mentioned it. Cost: $200 in paint and hardhats. Caesars executives called furious. I took that as a compliment.
The operators who blame the budget for poor results are the ones who never learned to work without one.
Resourcefulness beats resources. Every time.
The events that defined downtown Las Vegas.
We made it snow on Fremont Street at Christmas. We crowned the World’s Tallest Leprechaun King. We launched the Las Vegas Speed Date every Valentine’s Day as our official attempt at the world’s largest speed date, and thousands showed up year after year. We created the Fremont Street Beerfest. At Life is Beautiful, while other casinos set up mock blackjack tables in parking lots, I bought 50,000 bricks and gave people paint in every color imaginable. They painted their own brick. We built them into a massive mosaic wall where every person at the festival became a small part of something beautiful. The next year, people came back looking for their brick. Each one cost almost nothing. Each one drew thousands of people downtown and generated coverage that money could not buy.
Then we built the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center, a 20,000-capacity venue on Fremont Street, and booked Kid Rock, Sammy Hagar, and dozens of major national acts. When Hurricane Odile destroyed Sammy Hagar’s birthday shows in Cabo, I called his team, offered the Events Center, and pulled together a 15,000-person show in 24 days. His normal Cabo shows held 300 people.
From booking Shirley King at a 100-seat blues club in Chicago to filling a 20,000-seat venue on Fremont Street. Same operating philosophy, completely different scale.
Create experiences that define destinations.
