LAS VEGAS – Not many Las Vegas resorts make it to the 70-year mark without getting imploded and replaced with something completely different. But on Oct. 7, 2022, the Sahara Las Vegas hotel and casino did just that, 70 years after the original Sahara casino opened as the sixth casino resort on the Strip.
Over the span of those seven decades, the Sahara, like the NASCAR-themed roller coaster ride that once rumbled along the exterior of the building, has had its shares of ups and downs. But instead of starting from scratch when he purchased the resort, which had been operating as the ultra-trendy but financially troubled SLS Las Vegas since 2014, Cuban-American billionaire Alex Meruelo opted to bring the Sahara name back in 2019.
While the name is the same and the buildings were never razed, the Sahara of today looks very different, starting with the sleek new porte cochère at the entrance. And along with gambling at the casino itself, the Meruelo group went all-in on providing guests with unique dining and entertainment options.
The Sahara has long been known as a destination for staged productions, including shows featuring comedian Don Rickles, Tonight Show host Johnny Carson and singer/bandleader Louis Prima in decades past. (When the Beatles arrived in Las Vegas for their second U.S. tour stop in 1964, they were actually scheduled to perform at the Sahara before the screaming fan base forced a change of venue to the higher-capacity Las Vegas Convention Center nearby.)
The resort’s entertainment options now include three main venues: The Theatre at Sahara Las Vegas, which accommodates up to 1,800; the 446-capacity bachelorette-party friendly Magic Mike Live space; and the 29,000-square foot, 1,180-capacity Azilo Ultra Pool, with advanced poolside AV systems that include three large LED video displays.
Along with a custom built 25-by-65 foot stage, 12 VIP booths and three full-service bars, the Sahara Theatre features a new Meyer Sound system installed by Las Vegas-based New World Audio in early June.
The new sound system consists of 16 Meyer Mica line array speakers, six Meyer 700HP subs, two Meyer CQ-1 outfills, one Meyer CQ-1 center/down-fill, six Meyer UP-Jr. frontfills, a Meyer Galileo system and a Motion Labs power distro setup. Four 1-ton chain motors were also supplied with this system, with a start-to-finish time frame of less than 72 hours for the actual installation.
New World Audio owner Sonny Maupin started the system design process with initial conversations with Sahara execs in early March, exploring several options that might work best for the type of programming and entertainment that the Sahara intended on having in their main theater room.
Meyer Sound’s Michael Maxon, Alex Harbaugh and Joe Mistretta worked with AutoCAD files of the theater and presented options for various system designs. Further discussions with Sahara executives Yannick Mugnier and Enis Kola ultimately led to the decision for the installation of the system listed above, which was designed by Sonny Maupin.
New World Audio provided the technical information so that engineers could design and install structural rigging points for the main Mica speaker arrays. The engineers completed this on June 2. Trent Sherrell, owner of rigging company Sherrell Corporation, immediately went to work installing the chain motors and configuring the rigging points for the outfill speakers and center/down-fill speaker on June 3, finishing up the next day.
Also on June 3, New World Audio loaded in all equipment, prepping electrical cabling as required. On June 4, the New World Audio crew headed by Craig Tanaka and included Denny Chandler and Caedon Howell, connected power and installed all infrastructure cabling. The six Meyer 700HP sub-woofers along with the six Meyer UP-Jr. front-fills were then placed and cabled.
On June 5, Maupin, along with New World Audio crew members Craig Tanaka, Paul Vance and Jason Lein, rigged and flew the Mica main speaker arrays. All power and signal cables were identified, labeled, and patched. The preliminary file for the Meyer processor was loaded and all routing was verified. Audio was tested through the entire system. The same night (June 5), Michael Lawrence from Precision Audio Services performed the final system calibration, alignment, and tuning.
Comedian Eddie Griffith reopened his show the next day, June 6. Technical director Ben Labrador along with entertainment executives Enis Kola and Yannick Mugnier all were impressed with the system performance and the improvement over the prior system that had been installed in the theater.
Since then, the Sahara Theatre has hosted a number of other acts including the popular weekly local revue show, Reckless In Vegas, which takes lounge tunes from Las Vegas’ glory days in the 1960s (complete with Vegas showgirls) and updates it with an amplified rock band twist.
Related links:
- www.saharalasvegas.com
- www.newworldaudio.net
- www.meyersound.com
- www.sherrellcorp.com
- www.precisionaudioservices.com
