This week, Ira spoke with Oliver Lovat, a leading academic, researcher, writer and strategy consultant. In this 30-minute episode of Talk About Las Vegas, Lovat talks about the challenges facing Las Vegas coming out of the COVID era; the study he and others put together about the future of Las Vegas (see below); why Downtown Las Vegas was able to cope better than the Strip when it came to operating during COVID; one of the biggest mistakes that Las Vegas resorts made prior to COVID; the importance of knowing your customer base; and why Las Vegas always seems to win in the end.
Talking With Eric Gladstone – June 21, 2021
This week, Ira spoke with Eric Gladstone, author of Anything But Nirvana: Other Heroes & Happenings From Rock's Last Great Era. In this 30-minute episode of Talk About Las Vegas, Gladstone talks about his former career as a music journalist, covering bands in the 90’s and writing about them on a national level; getting inside bands’ experiences and interviewing them on the road; his big story on Smashing Pumpkins; why he tried to interview bands he was genuinely interested in; why the project took six years to compile, organize and edit from his interviews from that time; how the bands interacted with each other; why some of the stories don’t have happy endings; his reasons for writing about the bands; how he looks back at these stories from today’s vantage point (slightly cynically, but positively) ; his Las Vegas story (it involves Imagine Dragons!), which capped his music journalism career; the bands from that era that still survive (and thrive) today and why he doesn’t trust computers!
