Vegas All-Star Weekend Roll Call

[*TT*]

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Where did he say he was walking at night? Saturday afternoon at 2 pm, it was exactly as he described.

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Sat afternoon reminded me of walking down Broadway 33rd street to 25th street in NYC. Seriously, some people are WAY to sheltered, nobody is going to rob you. Per-capita there were fewer robberies in Vegas this past weekend than in LA. Lest keep this all in perspective - hype is bigger than reality.

TT [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

[bav]

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I walked down in the strip Saturday night at 2am from Bellagio all the way to the Wynn and caught nothing but good vibes... Young people drinking, dancing, flirting with each other and having a good time.

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And that's exactly what I saw during my very short stroll from Bellagio to Bally's Friday afternoon and on the stroll back that evening. I even did a slight detour and crossed Flamingo from Bally's, crossed the strip, and then crossed back over Flamingo just to walk through the crowd a little on the return. It was a fun atmosphere. Fear was the last thing on my mind.

But that's not what others are reporting. It apparently got uglier as the days passed, and folks claim it was worse in the afternoons than the evenings. I was surprised to read the posts here stating how bad things were since it was at odds with what I'd experienced and what I saw on the news and read in the ReviewJournal. But my failure to witness it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

[moris]

Will March Madness be similar to this event?

[surfinillini]

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Will March Madness be similar to this event?

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no

[pig4bill]

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I walked down in the strip Saturday night at 2am from Bellagio all the way to the Wynn and caught nothing but good vibes... Young people drinking, dancing, flirting with each other and having a good time.

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And that's exactly what I saw during my very short stroll from Bellagio to Bally's Friday afternoon and on the stroll back that evening. I even did a slight detour and crossed Flamingo from Bally's, crossed the strip, and then crossed back over Flamingo just to walk through the crowd a little on the return. It was a fun atmosphere. Fear was the last thing on my mind.

But that's not what others are reporting. It apparently got uglier as the days passed, and folks claim it was worse in the afternoons than the evenings. I was surprised to read the posts here stating how bad things were since it was at odds with what I'd experienced and what I saw on the news and read in the ReviewJournal. But my failure to witness it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

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I walked the other direction, from Bally's to Bell Friday at 11 pm, then back at 1 am except the "long way" out the front door (because I hoped to catch a cab to the Wynn) and so walked past quite a few people. There were very few banger-ish types out there. Things changed by the next afternoon.

[gowron8]

I've posted about this issue in another thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...e=0#Post9222930

I live in Henderson. From everything I've seen and heard, Jason Whitlock's article on aol is dead on.
Some of you have stated that you were walking on a certain part of the strip at a certain time of day during the past weekend and didn't notice anything troubling or threatening. Others have been very troubled by what they saw. The problem is that the observations of one person during one particular time at one particular area of the strip don't necessarily give an accurate indication of what the strip was like as a whole during the entirety of the weekend.
I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who either worked on the strip or spent a substantial ammount of time there on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I'm going to paraphrase some of what they told me after having been on the strip for the weekend.

-This was the rudest crowd I've ever encountered on the strip
-I did not feel safe
-I was harassed on multiple occasions
-I was sexually harassed on multiple occasions
-I had food thrown at me
-I left my shift early (because of the above)
-I witnessed heated arguments
-I witnessed fights
-I witnessed someone flashing a gun
-I witnessed people throwing things at passing cars
-I heard gun shots

Before someone pulls the race card here, let me point out that these friends and acquaintances are not all white males. Some are black, hispanic, males and females.
Every one of these people told me that this past weekend was by far the worst period of time they've experienced on the strip.
Please realize I'm not trying to scare anyone or discourage any of you from visiting the strip. For the most part, the strip is a perfectly safe and fun place to be. This holds true even during big events like New Years Eve, Super Bowl weekend, Rodeo tournament, Spring Break, NCAA basketball tournament, Boxing, Ultimate fighting, etc.
This past weekend was very ugly, but, fortunately, also very unusual.

[Cactus Jack]

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This past weekend was very ugly, but, fortunately, also very unusual.

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And will never happen again, thankfully.

I've not posted anything, anywhere, in regard to the past weekend, so this is the first. I'm doing it because I'm really disappointed in just about everyone involved, from the crowds to the Establishment.

I can understand the need for the mayor and the casinos to downplay what happened, but it's given people the wrong impression of Vegas, I believe. This place is unique, no place like it in the world. I've heard on sports talk radio that this has happened in other places that have hosted the All Star Game the last few years. The difference is this is Vegas--where this sort of thing is expected? Tolerated? Overlooked?

No one who works for a living--who works for tips, who deals directly with the public--that I've talked to, has had anything good to say about the whole damn thing. When I read the headlines in the RJ "Never again", I thought it was the city who was saying it, not Stern. Screw him and his whole enterprise. They were guests in our city, and they made themselves very unwelcome. It's going to be a long, long time before we get the smell out of the carpet.

They shamed our city and should be ashamed of themselves. They were not good guests. If you all had been here working in a job associated with tourists, you'd know a lot of stuff didn't get reported. A LOT.

Some apologists say it's about race or people who don't understand other cultures. It's not. It's about an uncivilized segment of society which is held to a different and substandard set of rules.

The bottom line is, if you are a guest in my home or a customer in my business and you bring a weapon, steal, break things and even are nothing worse than a rude, obnoxious clown, you are not going to be invited back---NEVER.

As I told my significant other after THURSDAY--if I hear MFer one more time today, my head is going to explode. (And as I heard from more than one couple--it started for them on the plane TO Vegas.)

If they were to announce that the All Star Game would be played next year in Vegas, I'd be making plans right now to be in <insert the name of anyplace that's not Las Vegas>. "Boss, I'm not going to be at work."

[52s]

The sad thing about all this is it's going to leave a permanent bad taste in the mouths of locals in regards to having a full-time NBA team eventually come to Vegas (if everything the NBA wants were to come to pass - new arena, etc.), when the average, typical NBA crowd and game is absolutely nowhere even close to what the All-Star Weekend was.

I went to Bobcats games in Charlotte in their first season when I was living there, and one of my housemates went to a bunch of Hawks games when he lived back down south, and we both agreed that we were among crowds that the average person who lived through AS Weekend would glance at and think are similar, but in fact were wildly different in that people were just there to have a good time (back in Charlotte and Atlanta).

It's a shame, to me, because I feel Vegas could really use a pro sports team, and this past weekend will disuade public interest in making it happen with the league that's gotten most chummy with Goodman.

[Cactus Jack]

I agree with you that it IS leaving a bad taste in our mouths regarding the NBA. It shouldn't. Most of the crowd that was here aren't going to every game wherever they live. It was a unique situation.

I disagree that we need a professional team of any sort. I moved here from Ft. Myers, Florida. I'm an avid sports fanatic. I listen to sports talk all day. In FM, the Patriots and Red Sox were as big on sports talk as the Dolphins and Bucs, and the Sox were far bigger than the Florida sports teams. Vegas is much the same, I think. You have so many transplants here, they root for the team from back home. The Runnin' Rebels don't get a ton of support. A local pro team wouldn't get the support that the Sox or Cubs get. The Bucs don't get as much as one would think, because of the transplanted fans loyalties to the old home team.

Vegas is a world-class city in its own right. It's Paris or London or Rome in its own way. It doesn't need a pro team of any kind to be equal to any other American city. In fact, it might diminish what makes us unique. Let's keep all sports on the sports book. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[bav]

So when Oscar and the NBA come asking the casinos to please remove the NBA games from the lines, I'm sure the casinos will have a particularly hard time figure out what's in it for them. A Vegas sports team isn't going to generate much more tourist traffic and isn't going to fill the casinos. They always knew that. But now they will be remembering how the All-Star fans scared away their big gamblers during chinese new year celebrations and actually cost them revenue.

No, the All-Star game did not improve the chances of Vegas landing a team.