It has taken $11 million and six months to pull off the amazing and incredible new Revolution Lounge, Cirque du Soleil's 1st nightclub venture, which opens Friday at The Mirage. Luxe Life got the advance sneak preview of the totally unique 400-seat entertainment environment. The three "blow your mind" highlights are:

* The 60,000 clear-colored-glass crystal squares, that sends a non-stop light show through the club downwards from the ceiling in a tribute to "Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds."

* The 60ft long x 10ft tall psychedelic wall screen, wrapped around 4 video-screened "Yellow Submarine " portholes, ridged with 3-D relief for a 10-hour video loop of Beatles imagery (the 2 1/2 hour program repeats four-times-daily with ever changing but differently connected scenes.)

* The 7 interactive tables that transmit customer-created images and writing onto the center columns of the 7,000-sq.ft nightspot.


Even more incredible is the fact that the music can actually be controlled and programmed from Cirque headquarters up in Montreal, Canada!!! The club opens daily to Beatles music at 5PM and closes at 5AM to more normal nightclub house dance tracks. You won't even need a couple of drinks too many to think you're tipsy, because this is moving kaleidoscope patterns akin to the psychedelic experiences of the 60's. It's a mesmerizing and memorable hallucinogenic without the drugs! Led by VIP hosts Andrea Duran and Collier Minerich the 61-strong staff has been fully hired and actually started their training sessions and wardrobe fittings on the day I visited.

Bill Hillman, its director of operations and head of business development for the Toronto nightclub group Ink, gave me the walking tour. We started at the 10ft tall red-letters with LOVE reversed for R EVOL ution that welcome guests into the Abbey Road bar complete with the alternating black and white stripes we call "a zebra crossing" back in England! Here's our conversation during the "walkabout," with only the bar needing to be stocked and the final computer programs triple-checked before opening night!

Robin Leach: Okay so the first thing that people see is...

Bill Hillman: The Revolution sign 10 ft. letters. L and E reversed to show the word LOVE reversed. Next is the Abbey Rd. Bar with its slate from Montreal brought in from a mountain in Quebec. The "zebra crossing" floor is identical to the one outside the Apple Studios on Abbey Road. It can hold 75 people sitting and standing.

RL: The gateway and door into the Revolution club starts with Beatles' lyrics and song titles on a see-through stainless steel panel?

BH: The lyrics on steel as well as on the back wall lighted with LED. It is an interpretation on the lyrics behind the lyrics of the Beatles. You can look through 'Let It Be' and find gorgeous graffiti from almost every song the Beatles wrote. It is awesome. Everyone is going to find their favorite on here. It's very colorful but not really psychedelic or neon. It is more a representation of the graffiti outside the Apple Studios at Abbey Rd where a lot of people have signed condolences and congrats to the Beatles over the years. Most of them are signed with Love to the Beatles and again, this is an interpretation of the graffiti on the actual London wall. The actual entrance doors are acrylic glass with equal properties on either side so it creates an illusion that confuses you d as to whether you are looking in or looking out. It is hard to tell. It adds to the psychedelic experience of the lounge.


RL: So on our left we have the first of the VIP areas?

BH: Yes. This is the first two of the interactive tables that are being installed. They allow interaction between the guest and the table, between the table and 'the counsel,' who is our host and image selector for what's projected onto the center column. It allows guests to share in the experience of other guests at other VIP tables. It is actually more of a motif set on each table randomly and as you write on one table, that motif is carried to another part of the table and not necessarily represented in the letters that you use to spell words, but those letters are represented in the shape of flowers or butterflies.

RL: So if I wrote the word 'Love,' how might that come out?

BH: It would be artistically interpreted. It wouldn't come out as love, the word would all of a sudden burst into bubbles or all of a sudden burst into flowers or burst into butterflies.

RL: So that would then be transferred to the counsel?

BH: If the counsel thought it was worthy of the center column. He is the chief video operator and controller. He can accept or reject your artistic efforts. It's a new job-profession for Vegas!


RL: Does he marry that image from table one to table five and you create a psychedelic collage on the center column?

BH: Exactly. We are referring to it as the graffiti column because everyone is allowed to add something to that center column. Our DJ booth is center stage between the interactive booths and the sound system we have installed here is state of the art installed by Frankie Desjardin who is Celine Dion's soundman, and sound engineer. (I learned it alone cost more than the neighboring Jet Nightclub's sound system which is 3-times the size and has the capability of programming directly over high-speed DSL computer lines from Cirque HQ in Montreal when a DJ isn't on duty!) Different nights have different themes. For example on Monday night it is Cirque family night. It is going to be a mix of international and electro house music and most of the international performers who are from the five Cirque shows here in Vegas will turn it into their neighborhood bar. We'll be open to the public, but are really promoting this to the Cirque family. In Las Vegas we have 1,300 and in Montreal there are 1,100.


RL: The effect of the ceiling as you walk through the club is unlike anything anybody has ever seen?

BH: The filtered glass, when the air conditioning is on and people are moving, will shimmer and catch light like a diamond. We have many lights and projectors in the room so it will be a very subtle, but a very impactful light show. Our polymer bar is also backlit with LED lights and will glow in different intensities during the night. There are 4 portholes in the back wall with screens inside for visuals and graphics so the back wall is patterned around the portals with it's primary purpose to act as a screen for the four hidden projectors that are mounted in the ceiling.

RL: So how world you describe the overall feel of the club, without getting too esoteric? Have you captured a little bit of London in the 60's, but with the added luxury of today's technology?

BH: We have definitely incorporated modern styles and modern technology as represented by the tables and the projectors plus the audio sound that we have. So we definitely have modern technology combined with this design to bring a unique feel to the room with a mix of modern images and 60's style. Call it London Mod."

Mirage president Scott Sibella summed up: "When it opens on Friday it is the next dynamic step in the continuing transforming of the resort. Revolution brings an even higher level of energy and excitement to the Mirage."

AS PROMISED
Sylvester Stallone's red-carpet premiere and celebrity-studded party last night at the Aladdin/Planet Hollywood was one smash success after another; call it the ultimate Knock Out party! Click here for all the Luxe Life photos of the stars at play!

OFFICIAL EXPANSIONS
Several times in recent weeks Luxe Life has steadily reported on new plans that Caesars Palace has in the works for its center-Strip property. Nobody has ever disputed our inside sources but today hard-on-the-heels of the amazing $27-billion+ buyout by Apollo it all becomes public knowledge when company executives seek official approval for the improvements to the Roman Empire: including a new 1,017-room hotel tower. The Clark County commissioners who watch over new building plans will review and recommend the go-ahead at their monthly meeting today. Simultaneously, the Morgans Hotel Group will unveil its plans to upgrade the current Hard Rock Hotel with additional casino, hotel, and non-gaming space that they are in the process of taking over! Always log onto Luxe Life for all the first exclusive and advance news of our ever-changing Strip skyline and resort hotel expansions!

SALSA STARS
Salsa dancing has become such an international phenomenon that competitors from over 20 countries on 6 continents flew in to Vegas for the 2nd Annual World Salsa Championships at the new South Point Hotel, and the finals were even broadcast live on ESPN International! There were four competitive divisions for dancers from such unexpected countries as Bulgaria, India, Israel and Korea! "Its no longer a Latin obsession," said organizer Albert Torres. "It's become a revolution with global fever thanks to the category being the highlight of TV dance shows." Winners in the four categories represented Mexico, USA, Australia, Colombia, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.

SWITCHEROO!
Within hours of the new owners of the Hard Rock announcing that the giant Anschultz Entertainment Group (AEG) theatrical booking agency will take over the headline acts at The Joint when Morgans Hotel Group officially gets casino licensing approval -- expected any moment -- rival Palms Casino owner George Maloof announced he'd picked their former agency Live Nation to run his new concert theater, the Pearl. (Click here for our tour of the studio.) Andrew Hewitt/Live Nation has signed a multi-year agreement to stat booking acts into the state of the art venue opening this Spring. Hewitt has been responsible for keeping the stages of some of Vegas' most preeminent venues, both large and intimate, rocking for more than 11 years, booking such acts as The Rolling Stones, Madonna, U2 along with hundreds of others. "Partnering was a simple decision. Their experience in the concert and touring industry is unparalleled and they know the Las Vegas market and the intricacies of touring; from the artists and venue to the marketing and promotion," said Maloof. "Our goal for The Pearl is nothing short of creating one of the most exciting new music venues in the world," said Hewitt. "This deal represents an extraordinary opportunity to bring the best artists in the world to this extraordinary venue." The Pearl will be one of the country's leading intimate concert theaters and will provide the ultimate concert experience for a variety of genres of music.

In addition to the Hard Rock, AEG continues at the Caesars Palace Colloseum with Sir Elton John, Celine Dion and the new Bette Midler and Cher shows plus the new Echelon Place complex of four mega-hotels to be built on the site of the Stardust next year.

STRIP SCRIBBLES

It turned into a triple X rated XXXmas School Dance party for porn-prince Ron Jeremy when he partied with Penthouse model Shyla Styles and Tiffany Masters' 15 Vegas Arm Charms for the Club Paradise show and Body English Dorm days party afterwards, and Luxe Life has the startling scanty-clad photos. Call Ron the "Bad Santa." Several floors of specially priced $69 Hard Rock suites were simply left open so revelers could party-crash from one room to the next to see where the best action was!!! ... Incidentally, as you can see in our new exclusive 'Surreal Life: Fame Games' photo (below), that's Ron Jeremy as a member of one of the A & B list celebrity teams dealing with one of the many challenges in the 'celebreality show' premiering January 7 on VH1 and humbly hosted by yours truly. (Click here for preview) It was entirely filmed on location here in Vegas! I'm also the game-show emcee, so I set the stars 30-second countdown confrontation contests to see which ones win or lose, and the results were hilarious, violent and quite staggering!


TONIGHT'S TIP
Use this no-event night to catch-up on all your Christmas shopping now before the final blow-out weekend crush hours run you "out of time."

TOMORROW'S TEASE
A five-year dream is about to come true for magician and illusionist Steve Wyrick as he goes into the final countdown phase of his new $35-million theater/nightclub ultralounge in the Desert Passage's Miracle Mile complex at the Aladdin/Planet Hollywood. Luxe Life has the full tour from the magic man himself in the final days to opening night!

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