Sun

• In Vegas, the sun shines 300 days per year
• The average daytime temperature in March (when Mutual Sales Leaders will visit) is 69 degrees; the average nighttime low is 44 degrees
• The hottest temperature ever recorded in Vegas is 117 degrees on July 24, 1942 and again on July 19, 2005; the lowest recorded temperature is 8 degrees on January 13, 1963

Bright Lights

• It takes 15,000 miles of neon tubing to light up the Strip and Downtown Las Vegas
• There are 216,510 light bulbs on the Christmas tree at Caesar’s Palace
• The 315,000 watts of Xenon bulbs at the top of the Luxor make it one of only three man-made features that can be seen from space
• 12.5 million LED bulbs light up the Fremont Street Experience canopy

Mega Hotels

• The Riviera was the first high-rise hotel on The Strip. Built in 1955, it was nine stories tall
• In 1989, Steve Wynn changed the face of Las Vegas when he opened The Mirage, the first of the mega resorts. It featured 3,044 guest rooms, a three-acre lagoon with waterfall and erupting volcano, 20,000-gallon saltwater aquarium and dolphin and white tiger habitats
• Today, Las Vegas boasts over 124,000 hotel rooms. Mega-resorts stretch up to a mile from end to end. And each is its own fantasyland, with unique shows, animal exhibits, extravagant dining, relaxing pools, amusement parks and more

Entertainment

• 1959 marked the beginning of the longest running show in Vegas – Les Folies Bergere at the Tropicana. It’s still running today
• The first resort to feature topless showgirls was the Dunes in 1957
• Elvis performed 837 consecutive sold out shows at the Las Vegas Hilton
• Barbra Streisand holds the all-time box-office record for a single event. Her 1999 New Year’s Eve performance at the MGM Grand sold 12,477 tickets
• Some of today’s hot tickets include everything from Broadway hits, like Spamalot and Mamma Mia, to production shows, like Cirque du Soleil, Mystere and “O.” Visitors also can see comedians like Jay Leno, Dennis Miller and Rita Rudner, magicians like Penn & Teller and Lance Burton and headline entertainers like Celine Dion, Barry Manilow and Tony Bennett

Wedding Chapels

• Vegas is the world’s wedding capital, with more than 120,000 marriage licenses issued each year
• Some of Vegas’s famous wedding couples include Elvis Presley and Pricilla Beaulieu, Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford and Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie, not to mention Ross and Rachel from Friends.
• Some of the most popular wedding dates in Vegas are those with repeating numbers. 7/7/07 is expected to be popular due to its implied luckiness
• Vegas is known for wacky weddings. You can be married by Elvis, ride a Harley Davidson down the aisle, have attendants dressed like mobsters, get married at the top of the Eiffel Tower or on the bridge of the USS Enterprise
• The average cost of a marriage license in Nevada is $35. The average cost of filing for divorce is $450

Endless Buffets

• Buffets in Vegas used to be cheap. Today, they’re gourmet affairs in elegant settings with prices to match (up to $30 for dinner).
• Shrimp consumption in Vegas is more than 60,000 pounds a day – more than the rest of the country combined

Round-the-Clock Gambling

• Gambling became legal in Nevada in 1931. Today, there are more than 1,700 places to gamble in Vegas. Most don’t have windows, clocks or closing times
• Only five percent of the people who visit Las Vegas say they come to gamble. In reality, 87 of visitors spend some time at a slot machine or gaming table. The average Vegas visitor spends nearly 4 hours per day gambling
• Slot machines are the most popular form of gambling; however, the popularity of televised celebrity poker has prompted many casinos to reopen poker rooms
• The slot machine was originally created to give the wives of high rollers something to do. Today, there are 197,144 slot machines in Vegas – one for every eight residents