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Madame Tussaud's Opens First U.S. Location, in Las Vegas

When Madame Tussaud launched her first wax exhibit in London in 1835, little did she know that by the end of the millennium her name and her museum would find their way to an Italian-themed hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

The $20 million exhibit, which employs 84 people, made its U.S. and Las Vegas debut July 22 at the Venetian hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

It features five themed environments that showcase more than 100 wax portraits of some of the world's most popular film, television, music and sport celebrities, as well as legendary Las Vegas icons, each one taking up to six months to craft at a cost of $30,000 to $45,000.

Admission fees are $10.75 for Nevadans and $12.50 for all other visitors. The company signed a 20-year lease in 1998 with the Venetian.

Madame Tussaud's, which received portrait sittings from almost all English royalty since King George III, will have a decidedly Las Vegas flavor here, featuring gaming legend Bugsy Siegel, Hollywood icons Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, and music stars Wayne Newton, Tom Jones and Liberace. There's Elvis too, of course.

The 28,000-square-foot, two-story wax museum brings to 10 the number of museums and attractions operated worldwide by the Tussauds Group. An 11th is set to open in New York in 2001.

The London-based developer of visitor attractions was sold last October by British media giant Pearson PLC for about $598 million to a venture capital group, Charterhouse Development Capital.

The group is now looking for opportunities to open Madame Tussaud museums in two other U.S. states, Andrew Tansley, the group's executive director, said. He declined to reveal the potential sites.

Plans are also in the pipeline for an initial public offering of the Tussauds Group on either the London or New York Stock Exchange, he said.

The Tussauds Group, which currently entertains more than 10 million guests a year at its attractions in Europe and Australia, aims to attract at least 400,000 visitors to the new Las Vegas museum by the end of the year.

Madame Tussauds' officials predict local residents will initially comprise some 15 percent of the museum's visitor volume, and tourists the remaining 85 percent. "Las Vegans tend to give attractions time before they visit, so we should see better numbers by 2000," Wyatt Foley, the museum's general manager, said.

"We're on a number of billboards around the city, taxicabs. We have a red London Bus driving up and down the Strip. But our main advertisement is by word of mouth. That's how 40 percent of our London visitors say they were recommended to see the museum," Tansley said.

"We've tailored each exhibition for the local market. We've done a lot of market research with different focus groups, identifying what people want to see... We want Nevada residents to think of the Madame Tussaud's here as their very own Tussaud's," he said.

by Grace Leong

Copyright © Las Vegas Sun. Inc. Republished with permission.

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