ALLIN

Fun has never been hard to come by in Las Vegas, but the arrival of pro sports, the Sphere, and lavish new hotels has upped the ante.

Wandering on and off the Strip, Jason Sheeler finds that all this world-building has made Vegas no less delightfully, wickedly, itself

Headpieces on display at the Las Vegas Showgirl Museum The immersive art and performance space the Sphere

IT'S the hottest day ever recorded in Las Vegas: 120 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm at the pool of LIV Beach at the Fontainebleau, the hottest club in town. At 2 p.m. the party is already in full swing. I am trying to talk to John about it, but he can't hear me over the 2024 Fisher remix of Jennifer Lopez's 1999 song "Waiting for Tonight." He just nods and takes a gulp of his Liquid Death. John is in his 30s, shirtless, with the pink-y hue of a New York City guy on his first day in Vegas. His truck stop sunglasses are sliding off his nose, there's not a drop of sunscreen on his body, and his Fontainebleau room key is somewhere beneath the water. He's sloshing between a group of bachelorettes from Miami and two German fashion students who tell me that they are having the "most American experience ever" after waiting two hours to get in.

The $3.7 billion Fontainebleau, with its 67 stories, 3,644 rooms, 36 restaurants and bars, private VIP check-in, and 140,000-square-foot hotel gym landed on the Strip in 2023 like a crown atop a prom queen. The chandelier in the gaming room doesn't so much shine as drip from the 42-foot ceiling. The hotel also contains the largest Saint Laurent in the United States, outposts of the acclaimed restaurants Mother Wolf and Cantina Contramar, and after-hours parties deejayed by Vanderpump Rules star James Kennedy.

Its opening was the culmination of a troubled 16-year real estate odyssey, which led many to conclude that the site was cursed.