After Hours: Bring on the Night

Let’s be honest. One of the benefits of a business trip is the chance to explore the nightlife in a new city. Without a personal guide or driver, getting around a city you’re not familiar with by rental car, bus or taxi can eat into your precious few free hours.

Many convention resorts and hotels figured this out long ago and created entertainment meccas right on their own grounds. But some have truly taken this idea to the next level.

Agenda item No. 1 is typically a post-meeting meal, and many resorts have pulled in some of today’s hottest celebrity chefs to get the job done. At Bellagio, for instance, four James Beard Award-winning chefs, including Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Michael Mina, oversee several restaurants that range from PRIME Steakhouse’s sumptuous fine dining with a view of The Fountains of Bellagio to Mina’s eponymous sleek, contemporary MICHAEL MINA Bellagio.

Mandalay Bay, also an MGM Resorts property in Las Vegas, is home to another Michael Mina restaurant, STRIPSTEAK, as well as the contemporary Italian Trattoria del Lupo, headed up by Wolfgang Puck—and that’s just a few of the scores of culinary offerings.

“Having the quality restaurants they have in Bellagio really helps out our individual chapters,” said Richard C. Brown, Executive Director of Convention & Meeting Services for The Associated General Contractors of America, whose various local chapters meet at Bellagio for the association’s annual conference.

Once dinner is done, the night is still young. The professional entertainers can take the reins now. Las Vegas, in particular, is chock-full of breathtaking and enchanting shows, such as the Blue Man Group at Monte Carlo, the hip-hop Jabbawockeez dance crew at Luxor or the various Cirque du Soleil® performances, such as Michael Jackson ONE at Mandalay Bay, Zarkana at ARIA, the magical KÀ at MGM Grand, The Beatles LOVE at The Mirage and the water-inspired “O” at Bellagio.

For those looking for a show of a different sort, MGM Resorts properties have some of the most popular clubs on The Strip and across the country. Hyde Bellagio, HAZE Nightclub at ARIA, 1 Oak Las Vegas at The Mirage and LAX Nightclub in Luxor were among the top 20 revenue-producing nightclubs in 2013, according to Nightclub & Bar magazine’s Top 100 list.

And, of course, there are The Strip’s various, exciting casinos in the evenings … or any time of day, unless the boss beckons, that is.