Now Performing in the Red Skelton Tribute Theater 167 East Wears Valley Road Suite #17 (Shops of Pigeon Forge) Pigeon Forge, TN 37863
Circus Circus Hotel and Casino
Circus Circus Las Vegas Hotel and Casino is located on the Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, Nevada. (Yep I said Winchester, even though people refer to it as Las Vegas, it is technically Winchester, a census designated area.)It is owned and operated by MGM Resorts International.
Circus Circus features circus acts and carnival type games every day on the Midway. Circus Circus also has the only RV park on the Strip providing additional accommodations in the 399 space park operated by Kampgrounds of America, also known as KOA. Circus Circus is the largest permanent big top in the world.
Circus Circus was opened on October 18, 1968 by Jay Sarno, becoming the flagship casino for Circus Circus Enterprises. Architects Rissman and Rissman Associates designed a giant circus tent shaped main structure, which was built by R.C. Johnson Construction of Las Vegas.
When Circus Circus opened it was only a casino, there wasn't a hotel to stay in and that seemed to cause some problems with attracting the "high rollers". In 1974 ownership changed with the sale of the casino to William Bennett and William Pennington for $25 million. The facility was expanded with hotel tower additions in 1972, 1980, 1985 and 1986 and 1996.
There is also a film history with Circus Circus.
The Circus Circus hotel's famous midway was featured in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever.
In his journalistic novel of the early '70s, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson wrote, "The Circus-Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This is the sixth Reich. The ground floor is full of gambling tables, like all the other casinos . . . but the place is about four stories high, in the style of a circus tent, and all manner of strange County-Fair/Polish Carnival madness is going on up in this space." When the Thompson work was adapted to film in 1998, the fictional "Bazooko Circus" was a thinly-veiled stand-in for the world-famed resort, which had refused permission for the filmmakers to shoot on their property.
The Adventuredome Theme Park and the Canyon Blaster roller coaster were featured in the 1999 movie Baby Geniuses. The theme park was known as Joyworld in the movie.
In the 1992 movie Honey, I Blew Up the Kid, the oversized child Adam is shown laughing and smiling at the Lucky the Clown pylon.
The Midway was featured in the 1978 film Corvette Summer, when Mark Hamill was being lured into a scam by a "salesman".
In the TV series Vega$, private detective Dan Tanna (Robert Urich) lived in a converted warehouse next to Circus Circus, and was often shown driving past the resort in his classic Ford Thunderbird.
If you are visiting Las Vegas with your younger children then Circus Circus is one of the "must see" places to visit,...it's so nice they named it twice,...Circus Circus.
