Las Vegas Weekly

January 26, 2010 · 12:06 PM

Photo Gallery: Palazzo and The Venetian celebrate Chinese New Year

By Robin Leach

Chinese New Year at The Venetian and Palazzo.

Photo: IS Photography/ImagesofVegas.com

Chinese New Year, which is Feb. 14, and the Year of the Tiger will be celebrated at The Venetian and Palazzo with a dragon and lion dance with firecrackers and festive decorations, including a 16 1/2-foot-long tiger and a Chinese bridge in the atrium gardens with citrus trees representing good luck and fortune.

The dragon and lion dance symbolizes good luck and prosperity for the year to come and is an important ritual of Chinese culture. The Chinese consider dragons to be friendly and helpful creatures associated with strength, good fortune, wisdom and longevity, and lions are traditionally seen as guardians and are used to exorcise evil spirits and summon luck and fortune.

The parade with dancers and musicians dressed in costume is complete with an eye painting ceremony. It will begin at The Venetian’s entrance drive, make its way through The Venetian into the Palazzo waterfall atrium and through the Palazzo and end in the upper Palazzo entrance driveway. The festivities take place Valentine’s Day weekend on Feb. 13 and 14.

Meantime, both casino hotels have been decorated for the Chinese New Year celebrations in the customary color scheme of red and gold, and traditional tangerine trees will help ring in the New Year. Decor for the Year of the Tiger also includes presentations of citrus trees, red envelopes and lanterns.

The Venetian reception desk wall features a red silk taffeta drapery treatment with I-Ching coins, and the lobby features red, orange and yellow floral to complement the banners and lotus lanterns hanging in The Venetian Colonnade. The Palazzo waterfall atrium has the most dramatic transformation, with a 16 1/2-foot-long custom-designed tiger, the Chinese zodiac symbol of 2010, located at the water feature facing the Palazzo casino floor.

The decorations celebrating Chinese New Year will remain on display through the third week of February.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter at Twitter.com/Robin_Leach.

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Follow VDLX Editor Don Chareunsy on Twitter at Twitter.com/VDLXEditorDon.

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