Nightlife & the Arts in Las Vegas

Las Vegas is the nightlife capital of the United States. Eight of the top 10 venues on Nightclub & Bar magazine's "Top 100" list for 2012 are in Sin City, with each bringing in a minimum of $35 million in revenue. Still fueled by the "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" advertisements (read: "All your sins here get expunged completely as soon as you pay your bookie, loan shark, and/or credit card bill"), nightlife impresarios on the Strip keep dipping into their vast pockets in order to create over-the-top experiences where party-mad Visigoths—plus, well, you and me—can live out some wild fantasies. The number of high-profile nightclubs, trendy lounges, and sizzling strip bars continues to grow, each attempting to trump the other in order to attract not just high rollers, but A-list celebrities and the publicity that surrounds them. Many of the newest clubs even have gambling. Though, we ask: Why bother when you can lounge beside the pool by day and bellow at the moon by night while dancing half clad at a club until noon the following day (when it's back into the pool you go)? In the late 1990s, once the Vegas mandarins decided that the "family experience" just wasn't happening, Sin City nightlife got truly sinful again, drawing raves from clubbers worldwide. A wave of large dance clubs, such as the Luxor's (now-defunct) Ra, opened their doors, followed by a trendy batch of cozier ultralounges—lounges with dance floors—like the MGM Grand's Tabú.