Las Vegas Weekly

March 14, 2013 · 3:33 PM

Let the bingo games begin at Green Valley Ranch’s shuttered Ovation

By John Katsilometes

Michael Grimm performs at Ovation Lounge at Green Valley Ranch on May 9, 2011.

Photo: Nate Ludens

It turns out those who anticipated a bingo room replacing Ovation at Green Valley Ranch were ... right on the ball.

Green Valley Ranch announced today that it is planning to open a bingo center in the space formerly occupied by one of the city’s great live entertainment venues. Ovation has been home to popular Vegas acts ranging from Steel Panther to Yellow Brick Road to Michael Grimm, and to such national names as Jeff Timmons, Berlin and Ted Nugent. The room closed in November.

The new bingo room abuts a bar called Sip. The center will seat 400 players, with 312 seats in a nonsmoking section and 88 in a smoking section offset in a glass enclosure, similar to how the bingo room at Red Rock Resort is set up.

The room will not be used for live entertainment, unless a bingo caller can be defined as such (and there is already a possibility that celebrity “callers” will be recruited to open the GVR bingo room during an unveiling ceremony in May).

This is a financial move: The company can make more money from bingo than by bringing in a regular rotation of live music.

Also, Station Casinos Vice President of Entertainment Judy Alberti said this afternoon that the reopening of Red Rock Amphitheater would not happen sooner than 2014, and the viability of the 10,000-capacity venue would be reviewed in October.

It is possible that it would reopen for the 2014 concert season, but that, too, is an expensive proposition as the company must rent the bleachers and stage for every show. Red Rock Amphitheater drew such top touring acts as Motley Crue, Pitbull, Toby Keith, Blink-182 and Jason Mraz to the outdoor venue. The Mraz show in October was the most recent, and possibly last, concert at the facility.

Unannounced is the status of Louie Anderson Theater at Palace Station. The comic is leaving at the end of this month to participate in the celebrity diving-contest show “Splash” on ABC, and his reps say he is finished at the hotel. When he leaves, that room will go dark and will turn into something else.

As for what it will become, let the guessing -- and bingo -- games begin.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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