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ARIA Turns On The Lights
Of all the ARIA related problems we've been discussing for last year or so, the one I disagreed with the most was the belief that the casino was too dark. I've always thought that the low lighting added an aura of mystery, richness and urbanity to the casino floor.
Here is the casino floor the day before opening:

For comparison, here's another pic of the casino floor from the Las Vegas Sun.
Due to lots and lots and lots and lots of customer complaints, the powers that be have been installing and brightening up the lighting throughout the casino floor. On the whole, I guess it looks a little better, but I didn't really think it was that bad to begin with. The new lighting in the casino pit, on the other hand, needs a little further adjustment.
I took this one over the weekend:

Interesting. They've put some lights in the decorative beams and point them at the ceiling where the reflect down on the casino floor. The sad part about this is that now the decorative beams are no longer the design focus of the casino floor, now it is a stretch of quicksand brown ceiling. Another unintended affect of this new lighting scheme is that the reflected light makes everybody look green - very unsexy.
*Shrug*
It may have been dark before, but it was sexy and fun. Now? It's a little pasty. I'm sure that there are easy ways to fix this, do some color reflection tests to see what ceiling paint color / light gel combo will yield brightness that flatters women and makes men look suave and debonair. I'd rather stumble around a dark casino than look at a bunch of pasty ugly strangers.
The good news is that they are certainly making tons of tweeks and changes to the gigantic list of complaints that the general public has expressed about ARIA. This is a good thing.

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Comments & Discussion:
I agree, the new tweaks take all of the mystery and mood out of the place.
Blah.
Guess I'll have to not gamble somewhere else.
I feel a little bad for that dealer sitting there all by herself.
"...do some color reflection tests to see what ceiling paint color / light gel combo will yield brightness that flatters women and makes men look suave and debonair."
You expect MGM to do this? Yeah, right.
@detroit keep hope alive.
I still haven't been in this casino yet but it's on my list of things to do on my next Vegas trip. Just as soon as I get sleazy Berlin out the way, Vegas will be next. I've got a roster.
I liked the darkness.... :(
Really, I was there in September. It wasn't that dark at all. Yeah, lowish-light, but I liked it and it wasn't as if I couldn't see.
It should also be noted that most of the lights here and throughout the whole Strip have been changed to LEDs. This, in particular at Bellagio, makes the whole place look like a hospital ward.
I was there in October and a black jack dealer told me that they had recently increased the light level and planned to increase it some more. She told me the complaints were coming from the dealers as well as the players. I found the light level acceptable as it was.
I remember Steve Wynn rambling on about casino design - I think during an earnings call just prior to the opening of Encore Macau - and he sang his own praises for doing the little things right to make casino ambience enhance the gambling experience. One of the things he mentioned was how the gaming tables were lighted. I initially thought he was just blowing smoke but I am coming around to appreciate that how the tables are lighted is important. I prefer to sit at the tables at Bellagio and Wynn over, say, the Mandalay Bay (too bright).
I for one, can't stand a bright casino. I remember coming back from a club and stopping in the casino bar at Paris. Ugh! It was way too bright in there to relax, much less gamble. Especially after having a shitload of drinks, talk about a buzz kill. We quickly headed next door to the Heart Bar at P-Ho, whose darkness was more than comforting. Gimme the subdued mystery of the Mirage's or Bellagio's casinos any day over the classroom ambiance of Monte Carlo or Palazzo.
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