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Meglen’s Roman Holiday
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the
The Colosseum debuted March 25, 2003, with a 200-show run by
Back at the turn of the century, the only “big ticket” residencies in Vegas were theatrical – Cirque du Soleil’s “O” at the Bellagio and Blue Man Group at Luxor come to mind, along with Siegfried & Roy at the Mirage.
But today, one need only look up the street to the Wynn, which lured Garth Brooks out of semi-retirement, and venues like The Joint and the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino and others bringing in rockers like
AEG Live’s John Meglen and the team at Caesars Palace are justified to look back on the Colosseum’s 10th anniversary with pride.
“For me, it’s like a 12-year anniversary because obviously we started on it a couple of years before it opened. It’s been quite the journey, but I think we’ve dialed it in and we know what we’re doing,” Meglen told Pollstar. “We learn more every time we do another one.”
With nearly 2,000 shows under his belt, that makes for a long learning curve. The Colosseum has moved some 6.4 million tickets and is approaching $1 billion in gross sales since Dion first stepped on the stage in 2003. And Meglen says the Colosseum is booked solid through the end of 2014.
“When we first started this, we were told that people make their entertainment decisions when they land. That’s when they begin saying, ‘What shows are we going to go see?’ We’ve helped change that,” Meglen said.
“Very few people thought this would work. They were taking 4,000 seats and saying, ‘Every time you do four shows, that’s equal to an arena. So if you’re doing 200 shows with Celine, and that’s the equivalent of 50 arenas, what makes you think she can sell out 50 arenas in Las Vegas?’ And I said, ‘If you put it to me that way, it’ll scare the hell out of me.’ But we don’t look at it that way.”
Meglen had reason to be scared. Though Caesars Palace poured $100 million into the construction of the Colosseum, AEG invested more than $150 million into booking and producing the inaugural Dion residency.
“The long-term benefit for Caesars Palace was, if it didn’t work, they’d still have a building. For us, if it didn’t work, we just blew $150 million,” Meglen said. “I think our risk was much, much greater back then because we wouldn’t own anything tangible afterward. But that’s all water under the bridge, history, today because we proved that it did work.”
If it hadn’t, it would have been one high-profile crash. The initial Dion production, “A New Day,” was created and directed by Franco Dragone, who similarly staged “O” across Flamingo Road at the Bellagio, and very much guided by Rene Angelil, Dion’s husband and manager. A lot was on the line.
“No one person could ever do this,” Meglen said. “This is something that many people put their hearts, soul, sweat, pain into. If somebody thought they were going to be the King Poobah of this thing, that would have totally derailed us and we wouldn’t have been successful.
“We had people like John Nelson and Mark Giuliano at Caesars when we did the first one and Gary Selesner who is the president today; all the people in Celine’s organization, with Rene Angelil right at the top.
Dion is marking the anniversary with her closing show March 16 but, according to Meglen, the best way to celebrate is to just keep on doing what they’re doing, and expand on that when it makes sense to do so.
“We’ve finally accepted that the concept of residencies works, as long as you’re at the right time with the right artist. What my dream is, is to build this out in other places in the world. That might be in Asia, Europe or Australia. Punta del Este in Uraguay, on the casino stretch there,” Meglen said.
But for the immediate future, Meglen says AEG Live is talking with other artists about coming when the calendar opens back up in 2015. Residencies may be shorter moving forward, to capture repeat customers who visit Vegas more frequently. And there may yet be more changes to the Colosseum – always a work in progress.
“And if that means I need some new toys in the building, between myself and Caesars, we’ll figure out how to put those in. Whether it be rain curtains, or lifts, or rigs, mattes for digital projection; we’ll look for what’s new out there that we can integrate.
“In Celine’s show, she sings a duet with herself. We were doing it at the Colosseum years before Tupac did, using the exact same technology. I know everybody loved it at Coachella but we were years ahead of them at the Colosseum.”
And Meglen clearly is enjoying the success and continuing growth of the venue.
“I ran into (Dallas Cowboys owner) Jerry Jones at a reading in New York for Harvey Weinstein’s ‘Finding Neverland’ and I introduced myself. He said, ‘I went to that Celine show and that’s where I got the idea for that big screen in Texas Stadium. You know, mine’s bigger.’
“And I said, ‘Yeah, but we’ve added on to ours, so ours is bigger,’” Meglen said, laughing.