Garth Mania.....

Last week’s press conference wasn’t even finished when you began to see the visible effects of the announcement that Garth was coming out of retirement. While members of the media sat inside the Encore Theater listening to Garth Brooks and Steve Wynn tell how their deal evolved, Wynn personnel updated the large lighted signs in the lobby with new signs proclaiming, simply, “garth” in white letters on a black background. Portable signs with posters announcing the start of ticket sales were placed in the middle of the theater lobby, in plain view of and just in time for the media representatives exiting the press conference. Garth’s picture was added to the Encore marquee; his image now looks out over Las Vegas Boulevard like those of hundreds of other perfomers who came to the Strip before him. The crowning touch came Thursday evening when the animatronic singing frog in Wynn’s Lake of Dreams donned a black cowboy hat for it's performance of “Friends in Low Places;" in previous performances, the frog had remained hatless.

Naturally, there’s been lots of excitement since Garth Brooks and Steve Wynn announced the terms of Garth’s 5-year deal to perform at Encore. The Las Vegas Review Journal reported that over 31 million people viewed various television news broadcasts of the October 15th press conference. If only one person out of every hundred who watched that press conference go to see Garth, the new Garth show will be sold out for every performance until almost the middle of its fourth year. And that’s if each of those people go by themselves, mind you.

Traffic to Wynn’s website has skyrocketed as a result of the announcement. Tickets for the first twenty shows go on sale Saturday morning at 8 a.m. That means 30,000 seats will be up for grabs. It’s difficult to predict how many people will be poised with computer or phone in hand come 8 a.m. Pacific Time on Saturday morning. Wynn’s Vice President of Public Relations and Advertising, Jennifer Dunne, told the LVRJ that they are gearing up to handle what will surely be “unprecedented call volume."

Norm Clarke speculated in his LVRJ column that this could be the beginning of “Garth mania.” There has been a lot of buzz on the internet. Some creative person with a sense of humor over at vegastripping.com posted this picture of Garth with a newly-shaped black cowboy hat that matches the swoop of the top of the Wynn and Encore buildings. Some internet observers express doubt that Garth will fit in at Wynn or that they have little interest in going to see Garth, but most comments come from loyal fans who are already making plans to see the new show.

It appears the stock market may not be as excited over the news as fans are. Thursday’s press conference was held after the markets had closed; Wynn’s stock had already closed that day at $64.98. Wynn’s stock price fell on Friday and has continued to slide down to $62.10 upon closing today. Steve Wynn has declined to comment on the cost of the deal with Garth Brooks, noting only that he had to buy Garth a jet plane to convince him (ka-ching!) and that the stockholders would probably fire him if he told what Garth is costing. So understandably, Mr. Wynn wants to keep the cost of the deal under his hat, so to speak. However, I hear that if the contract were large enough, Wynn might have to disclose some of those details in SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) filings. We’ll keep watching….