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Nightlife by Day

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Recently, Las Vegas casinos have begun to realize that all those tourists spending money for a night on the town are still in Las Vegas during the day. Thus, there are more and more options for nightlife to be had during the daytime. We sent Weekend America's John Moe down to Vegas for 12 hours-6 a.m. to 6 p.m.-to see if he could have a comprehensive night on the town during daylight hours only. John checked out reports of all night discos lasting past noon the next day, lavish pool parties with lascivious behavior and skimpy bathing suits, and even a few Vegas show options. He made it home safely and filed this report.

Notes from Senior Reporter John Moe

The mission for this story was a pretty simple one: take an early morning flight to Vegas and have a nightlife experience during the day. Then fly back before nighttime actually arrives.

If you listen to the first bit of tape on the story you can hear me mumble, "It's 6 a.m.," in a voice that sounds hollow and disoriented. If you keep listening to the whole story, you'll notice that the tone never quite leaves me over the course of the day.

The mission took me all over town and, of course, it left me with more story elements than I could possibly fit into a short radio piece. Among the things sadly left on the cutting room floor:

  • Observing the "street performers" at the Venetian, including one of those guys who's painted white and dressed like a statue and who isn't supposed to move at all. The thing is, he moved all the time. Waving, smiling, collecting money. He was less a "human statue" and more of a "human painted white".
  • The discovery of acrobats at the Miracle Mile Mall at two in the afternoon. I still believe they were pretty good, but on very little sleep and after a bunch of piped in oxygen, I was in no state to judge quality.
  • Multiple attempts to crash after-hours parties only to discover the parties had long since adjourned. I should have known when one of them was piping in Joni Mitchell music. You can't have a wild, after-hours party with Joni Mitchell. It would be like having a disco with Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" playing.
  • A lengthy interview with animal-show impresario Gregory Popovich. He's trying to train a goose to be in the act but the goose just isn't ready yet.
It was a disorienting day, but a successful one. The nightlife isn't easy to come by in the day but if you use your imagination, you can have a pretty interesting day.

Side note: I did gamble. I turned my two dollars into four dollars on a poker machine. Then I blew my winnings on a packet of trail mix at the airport. Viva Las Vegas!

More stories from our Sustainability series

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