Last week, Las Vegas released a report showing a breakdown in visitor profiles. While there’s no doubt that Vegas is going through a renaissance, with numerous international visitors flying in directly (there are even rumors that Singapore Airlines will restart a direct flight to Las Vegas), the biggest growth is coming from 18-35 year olds, also known as “millenials”.
It seems that just over a third of Las Vegas’ nearly 43 million tourists last year were millennials, who are drawn into a new form of entertainment. In order to address the need for new generation of content, MGM Resorts revealed plans for a multi-level eSports arena at its Luxor casino/resort on the Las Vegas Strip.
The company says it is transforming their LAX night club into an eSports Arena that will feature a competition stage, LED video wall, daily gaming stations, food and drink and a streaming and television-quality production studio. MGM Resorts International said that work on the venue will begin in early June with the goal of opening a multi-level eSports arena in early 2018. The venue will be able to accommodate between 750 and 1,000 people at any given moment.
Niklas Rytterstrom, general manager of Luxor, told The Associated Press that the decision to eliminate the nightclub was not because of its performance, but instead, it was motivated by the desire to offer customers something really different. “We will host a variety of events each night, as well as major e-sports tournaments on the weekends,” he said.
The “Arena @ Luxor” will occupy the space of the now-closed 30,000 square foot, 2790 square meter “LAX” nightclub. It will be twice the size of eSports arena which recently opened in the Neonopolis in downtown Las Vegas. The success of Neonopolis is showing the path forward for Las Vegas heavyweights such as MGM Resorts, Wynn or Sands, who are all planning big time presence in eSports arena. The property will be managed by Allied eSports, a joint venture of the largest e-sports, sports and entertainment companies in China, and eSports Arena, an operator in California.
When it comes to China, do you know that there are 1.7 gamers, over 95% of them PC gamers – for every living and breathing citizen of United States?
