Over the weekend, after almost 50 years, the old-school topless show “Les Folies Bergere” offered a final performance at the Tropicana. The Las Vegas Sun's John Katsilometes live blogged the event.

It is hard to imagine what it must have been like when Folies was new to Vegas. And fortunately I don't have to do so. The Sun reprinted its 1959 review of the original show opening. (The producer mentioned in the review, Lou Walters, now is perhaps best know for his daughter Barbara.) By the time I got to see Folies around 2000, it was already a vintage show that, along with  Bally's "Jubilee!," was keeping the traditional Vegas showgirl alive. Now only "Jubilee!" will offer the sort of show that has those moments when gaudily costumed yet  topless women with big smiles stand pointlessly on long staircases.

Of course, there are still plenty of topless shows on the Strip to see and more on the way. But they have smaller casts, more contemporary choreography and, in general, are a lot more explicit. Next month, Peepshow at Planet Hollywood will be the latest addition to the Strip's offering of topless shows.  But the traditional Vegas production show built around old-school showgirls is now down to just "Jubilee!" I did not have a preference between "Folies" and "Jubilee!" So, while tourists who want to see that golden era Vegas now only have "Jubilee!,"  they can still get that experience. 

But while "Folies" was grabbing headlines, Las Vegas Weekly (where I am on staff) broke the story of the closing, after four years, of the burlesque revival nightclub Ivan Kane's Forty Deuce at Mandalay Bay. I am still trying to independently confirm the closure, but it seems to have happened last night.

The demise of Vegas' Forty Deuce could be a harbinger for the nightclub industry here. Over the last few years, casino nightclubs have become a crucial component of the Vegas entertainment scene. And, like the resorts that house them (the nightclubs mostly are not resort owned but tenants), have grown increasingly elaborate and expensive to build and therefore very dependent on high-end customers who can afford bottle service.  In fact, nightclubs are one of the reasons shows like "Folies" started to lose customers even before the recession hit. A Vegas vacation went from being dinner and a show to dinner and a nightclub for a younger generation.

Forty Deuce cleverly worked both crowds by using teasing burlesque dancers (including over the years guest dancers like adult star Tera Patrick) with a live jazz band for the striptease shows (no nudity). But overwhelmingly, for most of the night, DJs offered hard-core clubbing.

I have heard rumors about the financial health or potential sale of a few nightclubs in Vegas. But I have nothing confirmed enough to put out names yet. But the reality right now is that a night of clubbing has become vastly more expensive than even the priciest show tickets in Vegas, and should the nightclub industry falter at all, I will be interested to see if production shows are able to take advantage of the opportunity to ignite an appeal again among younger tourists.

But, for now, with the closing of Folies and Forty Deuce, one things is clear, Vegas is going to be just a little less sexy than it was a week ago.

(Photo by Sarah Gerke)

The proposed $50-million Las Vegas "mob museum" has wound up at the center of a minor storm in the national debate over President-elect Barack Obama's proposed economic stimulus package.  Local journalist Steve Friess got Mayor Oscar Goodman to offer this defense of his pet project:

"I’m saying to myself, although my mother was a great artist, nobody’s going to come to downtown Las Vegas to look at paintings, they’re not going to look at watercolors, they're not going to look at porcelain, they’re not going to look at miniature trains. What will they look at? They’ll look at something that’s really embedded in history, that makes us unique and distinctive from any other city, that has a historical nexus, a keystone because of the Kefauver hearings, and I said, 'A mob museum!' And I think it’s a natural."

In response, the president-elect commented on ABC's "This Week": "We don't want is this thing to be a Christmas tree loaded up with a whole bunch of pet projects that people have for their local communities."

To give some history: The proposed building for the mob museum is where Sen. Estes Kefauver in 1950 parachuted into Vegas for a hearing on the mob's control of Vegas. That hearing on organized crime in Vegas lasted less than a day, heard from only a handful of witnesses, adjourned for a visit to Hoover Dam and never returned or followed up on Vegas.

Like so many before and after, Kefauver came to Vegas acting like a man chasing publicity. More important, an attitude that he was the first to talk about organized crime in Vegas resulted in alienating instead of assisting locals who had actually been trying to get the mob out of town for years, at great personal risk. In short, the Kefauver hearings were a farce of pretend government action. Kefauver went on to peddle his celebrity with a game show appearance. Of course, in a way, this makes the mob museum totally fitting as the proper backdrop of a government pork project more than 50 years later.

I will go on the record that I think the mob museum is a horrible idea. In 2009, Vegas has reinvented itself in so many ways and so many times that a mob museum already sounds quaint and dated. Maybe the last time this may have been a good idea was back when "The Sopranos" was a hit television show. Otherwise, if you care about the mob in Vegas, rent the movie "Casino."

The bigger issue is that no matter who is paying, museums are not the sort of new attractions Vegas needs right now to recover. This idea totally misses the mark of why people come to Vegas, and what makes Vegas so special. It is not our history but our lack of history that draws people. It is not the education you can gain about the history of the town when you visit Vegas, but what you can do in Vegas while visiting that brings the tourists.

As I have noted before, Vegas sells experience: entertainments that can't be pirated, downloaded or bought online. Therefore concerts, production shows, dining, gambling, nightclubs and attractions with interactions are going to continue to bring people here. To assist that process, Vegas has to return not to the days of the mob or invoking those memories, but to actually delivering the unbelievable bargains of 30 years ago. We need to allow regular, hardworking people to afford to come to Vegas and leave with memories that are worth their money.

In this way, Vegas is closer to a movie or compact disc than it is to most other tourists destinations. In many ways, one goes to Paris or New York to be steeped in their culture, visit museums and see landmarks. You experience those places hoping to gain something of the legendary location's special traditions and history.

That is not Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a gaudy blank slate of unlimited potential in which you create your own custom experiences during a visit. One does not come to Vegas for the history of Vegas -- mob or otherwise -- but for the ever-changing now of Las Vegas, with its malleable ways to take a walk on the wild side. What makes people come to Vegas is not what they can see here, but what they can do here. And, in that sense, money aside, the mob museum sort of misses the point: Vegas tourists want the now of this place, the torrent of possibilities of today's Vegas, not the then of this town's history. A Vegas trying to sell its past is a Vegas without a future.

Photo: Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goldman at last year's Helldorado Days parade. Credit: Sarah Gerke

Last year at this time, the answer to this question was self-explanatory. Now, the answer is likely to be: nothing. That is a scary thought. Legal gambling is spreading across the country and Vegas has invested in a new generation of resorts without any thought beyond past growth patterns predicting future growth patterns. The Strip is in big trouble during this recession; the finances of every major casino company make that point, as does our declining visitor counts and dropping gambling revenue.

These are uncertain times even in a city that has such unbreakable optimism that others have always called it foolhardiness. But now even the relentlessly positive conversations one has in Vegas have been breached by headlines from outside town. There was a time, just a few months ago, that was truly not the case and it was said by casino executives, though not for attribution, that Vegas doesn't have recessions. A low dollar meant only more foreign tourists. But the majority of our tourists statistically come from Southern California. And the obvious has hit home: Hard times for them mean hard times for us. Now people do not say that the national economy won't impact Vegas.  Local giants Harrah's and MGM-Mirage have had layoffs. And locals who once scoffed at the idea that Vegas could ever overbuild with hotel rooms now take that notion seriously as 20,000 to 30,000 more rooms head toward completion in a city that expects occupancy rates to stay above 90%.

But even in a time of doubt there are plenty of exciting things on the horizon. Sorry for that transition. I mean only that there is a lot happening here and, speaking truth, Vegas is all about money, and hard times here usually mean everything is cheaper for tourists. This is a time to fight for a bargain, and you will get it no matter what range you shop. Here are five things worth coming to town to check out in coming months.

5. Downtown's return (ongoing). There is a little optimism kicking in with this one because people have been talking about the return of downtown since I moved here with little apparent results. Well, things are now happening. The Fremont East entertainment district and places like the Beauty Bar are finally pulling in tourists. I can feel the greater numbers of people under the canopy of the Fremont Street Experience, the single best bit of weirdo brilliant entertainment Vegas has to offer. Certainly as much as any of the offical plans to revitalize downtown, the bargains available became the biggest pull in making the older properties and areas more desirable to new generations of tourists. But a lot of money has gone into preparing for this moment. And while some casinos are more ready for their spotlight than others, I can highly recommend the Golden Nugget as one casino that has put money into making the property the jewel of downtown again. This remains an uncompetitive category. But I think Golden Nugget still has applied gusto to winning.

4: Aliante Station (opening in November). It used to be that a locals casino was of interest only to locals. There were key ingredients like a movie theater, a food court, an arcade and gambling. Certainly properties like the Palms and Rio had locals as costumers  But both were within blocks of the Strip. With Green Valley Ranch (which I live across the street from), a locals casino truly proved able to offer an alternative to tourists searching for a high-end experience away from the bustle of the Strip. When Green Valley Ranch proved a worthy alternative to a nice Strip hotel to a certain segment of the travel market, locals casinos finally found a way to get tourists that few even aspired to reach before Green Valley Ranch opened. It probably helped with tourists that a cable television show was made about the casino. After Green Valley Ranch, Stations perfected this approach with its next offering, Red Rock Resort. Red Rock offers among the most scenic locales in Vegas, and nature aside, there is even a beautiful view of the Strip in the distance. People from out of town love the exclusive feel of the place while, like all Stations casinos, the property also services its neighborhood with a food court and movie theater. But Red Rock Resort has also offered talent competitive with the Strip, including Kanye West's most recent concert in Vegas. I also wrote on the Buffet about the principals of Jane's Addiction playing together this weekend at Red Rock. That said, Aliante Station seems a more modest affair. But it is telling that even a modest affair in Vegas these days includes a bar with bottle service and a 700-seat showroom and six restaurants. There is also a value to all these new showrooms because even at a locals casino they need acts of national stature to sell that many seats. The new showrooms (the Hard Rock, see next item, is opening another one) are the primary engine behind the increasingly unprescedented concert diversity of the offerings in Vegas.

3. Hard Rock renovations (ongoing). At one time the Hard Rock was the rare off-Strip casino that carried the prestige of the Strip. Even tourists not staying there wanted to visit and see the memorabilia or play the Sid Vicious slots.  In fact, back in 1999 the Hard Rock was easily the coolest resort in Vegas, able to enjoy strong local support while becoming a first-choice tourist destination too. Then the Palms opened in 2001 and simply did a far more sophisticated and impressive job at understanding and marketing to the best elements of the Hard Rock's clientele both locally and with tourists. After "The Real World" aired, the Palms pretty much aged the Hard Rock overnight into a Boomer place while the young and hip began migrating to the Palms. Then the nightclub revolution happened, making the Strip a much cooler destination for L.A. elites than the old days. And even the Rio of late has made a play for what was once the audience of young too-cool-for-Vegas types that made up the Hard Rock's core audience. That few now object to Vegas in the way the Hard Rock could wink at while capitalizing on in 1999 has also been a factor. There is little irony anymore in being the rock casino. But while all the Hard Rock's competition caught on to how to market to the next generation, little changed at the venerable property. Now finally the results of $800 million in planned renovations are beginning to show. A rock concert bar called Wasted Space already has its doors open, with a grand opening on the way. More openings in retail, a new nightclub, a revamped concert venue and numerous other improvements not yet announced are all set to open in the 12 months. The result, one hopes, will again make the Hard Rock one of the best destinations in Vegas. This is a property all Vegas benefits from keeping at the top.

2. Cirque's "Believe" starring Criss Angel (October at Luxor, grand opening). Angel has become quite a controversial local presence since the show was announced. As a result, there is a lot less good will toward this show than one would expect from such an interesting combination of talents. Angel's edgy performance art is a lot closer to the street performances that the Canadian circus troupe left behind decades ago in its ascent to becoming the leading entertainment company on the Las Vegas Strip. When "Believe" opens, the Angel vehicle will be the sixth permanent show Cirque has sandwiched between a couple of miles of Las Vegas Boulevard. Yet no one seems concerned that "Believe" will oversaturate the market because of the star: Criss Angel. Few entertainers have that impact. This show fails or succeeds based on Angel. And Angel has proven to be fantastic at pulling in an audience.  Also, the Angel opening must be seen compared to what the rest of the Strip is up to doing. Other shows set to launch include Donny and Marie at Flamingo and Danny Gans at Encore. In terms of excitement, "Believe" is truly opening without competition.

1. Encore (end of year). The online system will not accept reservations before February. But Encore is set to open by the end of this year. Las Vegas has a lot of new Strip resorts being planned and built right now as part of the latest construction boom. The most impressive is the six-tower CityCenter under construction as a partnership between MGM-Mirage and oil-rich Dubai. The first of this new wave of resorts to open was Palazzo at the start of this year. Since Palazzo is physically joined (especially for back of the house functions) to the Venetian, the two combine to make Venetian/Palazzo the structure with the most hotel rooms of any resort in the world. But for locals the real excitement is saved for the opening of Encore near the end of the year. Why? Steve Wynn. From Mirage to Belagio to Wynn, no one has a better track record at amazing openings to even more amazing resorts. Steve Wynn is his own category, and he has set the standard for decades. Encore, Wynn's latest, will be examined by his competitors and customers as a measuring stick of the possible for all the other resorts. (Photos by Sarah Gerke)