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Inspired by the "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" attitude, and that it usually happens after dark, nightlife impresarios keep dipping into their vast pockets to create over-the-top experiences where party-mad Visigoths—plus, well, you and me—can live out some wild fantasies. The number of high-profile nightclubs, trendy lounges, and sizzling strip bars continues to grow, each attempting to trump the other to attract not just high rollers, but A-list celebrities and the publicity that surrounds them.
Many of the newest clubs even have gambling. Though, we ask, Why bother when you can lounge beside the pool by day and bellow at the moon by night while dancing half clad at a club until noon the following day (when it's back into the pool you go)?
In the late 1990s, once the Vegas mandarins decided that the "family experience" just wasn't happening, Sin City nightlife got truly sinful again, drawing raves from clubbers worldwide. A wave of large dance clubs, such as the Luxor's (now-defunct) Ra, opened their doors, followed by a trendy batch of cozier ultralounges—lounges with dance floors and high-tech amenities.
The game of one-upmanship has continued—recent additions that have kept the city hopping include the massive Omnia at Caesars Palace and more intimate Intrique Nightclub at Wynn Las Vegas. What's more, bawdy 1950s-era burlesque lounges are continuing their comeback with a gaggle of clubs now dedicated to the art of striptease.
Few cities on Earth match Vegas in its dedication to upping the nightlife ante. So with all these choices, no one—not even the Visigoths—has an excuse for not having fun, however you define the "f" word.
The 80,000-square-foot Vegas haunt is one of the iterations of the nightclub brand that started in London. The space is one part nightclub, one part modern Cantonese restaurant—five floors in all, with three dedicated to nightlife. To fill this space, the venue has booked some of the biggest DJs in the world, including Lil Jon, Calvin Harris, Steve Aoki, and Tiësto. For a more casual experience, head to the third-level Ling Ling Club.
As the name suggests, the nightclub at Park MGM is all about sound. The brainchild of L.A.'s Houston brothers brings in live DJs and offers three hidden karaoke rooms, as well as a hidden vinyl bar in the middle of the club. Perhaps the coolest detail is the hallway lined with cassette tapes. Don't miss the double-decker bus in the open-air courtyard either; it's like nothing at any other club in town. On the Record is open Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights.
Nowhere else in Vegas furnishes you with the four Ds—dining, drinking, dancing, and drooling—in quite as alluring a mix as this multilevel (and multimillion-dollar) playground. The ground floor and mezzanine levels are exquisite enough (you almost tumble into the women in rose-petal baths before you're in the door), but once you get off the elevator at the top floor, where an army of dramatically lighted stone deities greets you, the party truly begins. Chinese antiques, crimson chandeliers, and a so-called Opium Room set the mood. It's still one of the best dance clubs in Vegas. In spring and summer, Tao Beach opens with daytime pool parties.
A staircase leads revelers straight from the Paris casino floor up to this French-inspired nightclub on the roof of the resort. It's bordered with glass walls to provide optimal views of the Strip—and allow for lots of Instagram-worthy photos. The Rooftop has VIP tables, bottle service, and plenty of room for dancing under the stars. It's open from 10 pm to 2 am, Friday and Saturday, and reservations are required; call or book online.
Perched atop the Palms, this apex of ultralounges was one of the first in Las Vegas to put a public area on top of a hotel tower to offer a glassed-in view of the city. Step outside and you'll find that the outdoor "Ghostdeck" is cantilevered over the side of the building, with a Plexiglas platform that allows revelers to look down 450 feet. For the views of the Strip skyline from the 55th floor alone, it's worth the effort. GhostBar usually opens by 9 pm, sometimes as early as 7 pm to let older folks have a gander before the younger club crowd moves in. Name DJs keep the latter hopping as the night goes on.
If this club isn't the way you remember it, it's not the drinks affecting your memory. Gipsy occupies the same footprint as the legendary gay club of yore, but that's about it. A $4 million reconstruction created a new indoor-outdoor club and sushi bar on the same property. The new building displays a considerably more upscale vibe, including state-of-the-art lighting, a video wall, and floral-themed touches evoking the Parisian showgirl costumes of classic Vegas. It shares the same ownership as nearby Piranha, so Gipsy has honed in on drag performances—including a Saturday drag brunch—while Piranha is more the wild dance club Gipsy was back in the day.
The big new resorts would be nothing without their dance clubs, and Fontainebleau fills that niche with this one that comes straight from the Miami Beach original, now crowned with a halo of Sin City lights. Headliner DJs might include Tiesto, Dom Dollar, or David Guetta, and the club hosts special events such as a viewing party for the Big Game—or Super Bowl, for anyone who’s not a Las Vegas casino.
Las Vegas club operators are always looking for that perfect party that will appeal to everyone and Omnia definitely goes the distance, with numerous experiences for club-goers—"Omnia" does, after all, translate to "all." This is a 75,000-square-foot behemoth of a club from nightlife heavyweight Tao Group, where the music comes from celebrity DJs like Steve Aoki and Justin Credible. There's a big emphasis on interactive technology, which extends to the 22,000-pound kinetic chandelier with eight rings that dance with light to the music, along with six aerialists. The lines to enter stretch through the casino floor with gaggles of trendy youth. The weekend brings Deseo Latin Sundays for that rare Latin experience at a Strip nightclub.
Revelers pack this gorgeous spot every night of the week, and with good reason, given that it's the main gay dance club in town. Each night offers a main-stage drag, acrobatic, or dance performance. Weekends bring ticketed performances from the likes of RuPaul's Drag Race contestants, but weeknights usually have no cover charge. Although the dance floor at Piranha is legendary, find your way through the labyrinth of rooms to the spacious, fireplace-ringed open-air patio out back.
What do you get when you fill a country-theme Texas saloon with slick dance-music-crazed nightclubbers? Madness—10-gallon-hat madness. Behind the Texas-shape neon sign, Stoney's Rockin' Country has all the glam hot-spot fixings: one of the largest dance floors in Nevada, private tables, a VIP lounge, bottle service, and music that can segue from Merle Haggard to Jay-Z. You can't beat the prices either. The location in Town Square makes the club convenient to visit from casinos on the Strip. The smaller Stoney's North Forty is at Santa Fe Station in the northern 'burbs.
Zouk is, as you would expect from the vibrant-in-color-and-spirit Resorts World, a pulsating, throbbing bazaar of more than 2,000 dancing bodies, bright big-city lights, strobes, and lasers in what the operators say is the most technologically advanced club in town. Expect to see big-name artists, such as Kaskade, Tiesto, Ludacris, DJ Snake, Lil Wayne, Zedd, and Slander performing.
