Kenny Rogers And Gambling Your Rent Money Away: Perfect Together?
The cliches about the kind of concerts held at casinos–a washed-up crooner running through oldies and standards twice a night–are your usual “cliches for a reason.” But the audience for a casino concert is changing, no longer the wrinkly retiree with a cup full of quarters and a free buffet coupon. The audience for casino concerts is actually you and me, whether we know it yet or not.
And with the 25-and-older demographic expanding, Cantone remains confident that casino bookings will reflect their tastes. “It used to be where an older market went to have their entertainment fix. But now the twentysomethings are going. If you’re young, want to go out and play poker or blackjack, then catch a cool concert, where else can you go?”
Good question. A better question might be: “What kind of acts are they going to have to book to bring ‘cool twentysomethings’ into a casino?” Because right now, the booking seems stuck in the old model–b-list musicians playing to distracted gamblers–unless Phil Lesh at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville is supposed to excite fans of blog band du jour. The Arcade Fire and the never-ending shrimp cocktail…now we’re talking.
