This experiment at a Monte Carlo lounge has the benefit of novelty. From the LV Sun:
It sounded like an odd fit for Vegas.
The fact is the waitresses in the new lounge at the Dragon Noodle Co. inside the Monte Carlo aren’t wearing uniforms. They’re wearing costumes.
It’s true that melding entertainment and service isn’t new to town. There are the singing waiters at Paris Las Vegas and celebrity impersonators dealing cards at the Imperial Palace. But these waitresses are dressed as characters from Japanese anime cartoons, a hobby known as cosplay.
Two things stand out about the American cosplay community: it skews very young, to teens and even pre-teens, and it is, well, geeky, neither of which is an audience that gets catered to often in Las Vegas. Yes, there was Star Trek: The Experience, but that’s closed and besides, those were old geeks. They could buy drinks. This sounds like having a Miley Cyrus-themed lounge.
We asked the co-owner of Dragon Noodle Co., Charles “Chipper” Pastron, the man who came up with the idea for a cosplay lounge in Las Vegas, for an interview and an explanation. He responded by bringing along his new bartender and cosplayer, Heidi Haldman. She was already working in town as a bartender, one who happened to have a side hobby dressing up in homemade Japanese cartoon costumes. “It’s the only thing that keeps me sane in this crazy town,” she says.
Haldman said that when she saw an ad on Craigslist for a cosplay bartender, she knew she had found the perfect job. Pastron says she’s his anime expert and an ambassador to Las Vegas’ fledgling cosplay community. She says that while most fans might be too young to drink though they could still order food and soda, the organizers of cosplay conventions are old enough. Plus, there’s an anime club at UNLV. So that’s a few people right there, plus word should get out online for tourists.
It is only a 40-seat lounge, after all.
via An experiment in pop culture fun on the Strip: Anime-attired waitresses – Las Vegas Sun.
I didn’t know what cosplay was until one of my students showed up to class in a costume a while back, so I’m not the target audience they’re going for here, but I think that we should see more of this on the Strip because it’s something that you can’t see anywhere else. This is why people will continue to come here when they can gamble in their own backyards–to see things they can’t at home.
Twenty years ago, having a big room full of slot machines with a coffee shop, buffet, steakhouse, and lounge was relatively rare–there was a pretty big novelty factor in Las Vegas. Today, that’s just not true. This anime-themed space is definitely a small niche in the total consumer pool, but it’s a different one. Many people complain–rightly, perhaps–that the Strip is becoming too homogeneous, with slick single-word nightclubs and restaurants crowding out everything else. This is different, and that’s good.
Even if you’re not a fan of anime, something like this is unusual enough that it would be a site to see. And if you are a fan, it might be the coolest place you can think of.
Let’s see more of this kind of innovation…it’s only going to help.