Fireworks explode during the grand opening of Resorts World Las Vegas on the Las Vegas Strip
Thursday, June 24, 2021. The $4.3 billion megaresort, built by the Malaysia-based Genting Group,
occupies the site of the former Stardust hotel-casino.
Resorts World Las Vegas opened its doors Thursday night to guests eager to be part of the glamorous excitement of a new, ground-up megaresort the likes of which hasn’t been seen on the Strip since the Cosmopolitan opened in 2010.
A traditional lion dance was conducted to ensure luck and prosperity at the Asian-themed property.
Performers in elaborate lion costumes crouched in still, “sleeping” repose in one of the multiple grand driveways, facing an elegant lobby where invited VIPs reveled at an early access party.
Dignitaries then dabbed the lions’ heads with red ink — left eye to right, forehead, mouth, and head to tail — as the performers wriggled the ears and tails before springing up.
The parallel was obvious. Las Vegas, forced into hibernation for months by the coronavirus pandemic, craves the boost in morale, not to mention revenues, that such a massive undertaking promises. And the sprawling, $4.3 billion Resorts World looks poised to deliver.
“What a way to tell the world that Las Vegas is back,” said Rep. Dina Titus, after a solo dance by a ballerina costumed as a peacock and before the lions awoke.
“If you asked a year ago if this would be built right in the middle of the pandemic, you would have (thought), ‘No,’” said Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom. “But people came out here, worked their butts off, pounded nails, poured concrete, with masks on while we’re home complaining because we can’t do Zoom.”
Gov. Steve Sisolak said he deemed construction workers essential because he didn’t want to put even more people out of work when last spring’s sweeping pandemic shutdowns strangled the economy, and he knew Las Vegas would bounce back. So building continued even when gaming halted.
“People say if you dream it, you can build it. You cannot dream what is inside these walls,” Sisolak said. “It is so magnificent, it is so phenomenal, so over the top. It’s setting a new standard, and it’s raising the bar very, very high.”
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