Spirit Magazine - December 2013 - (Page 90)

last few months, he's been involved in an online crowdfunding campaign to save one of the city's oldest historic buildings, the Huntridge Theater. Stunning critics and even some supporters, the gambit worked, raising $207,000 from 741 contributors-well beyond the original goal of $150,000. Without enormous community support, no one raises that kind of money for something as ambitious yet uncertain as renovating a 69-year-old building. It's what strikes Swanson as so remarkable. That, and the fact that he actually lives in downtown Las Vegas. "Even when I turned 18, I never went downtown except to meet people at the Fremont Street Experience," he says, referring to the tourist draw. "It was pretty sketchy everywhere else." Swanson has a theory about why "community" is becoming such a tangible force in his home city. "It's a backlash to having gone so long without [it], that sense of knowing and enjoying your neighbors," he says. "Now, everybody really, really wants it so bad; it's overcompensating in a really cool way. I'd even say that the brand of community happening here is unique." And increasingly youth-oriented. In 2011, the Electric Daisy Carnival, a pulsating music festival geared to ravers, relocated from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The threeday event at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway drew 230,000 partiers in its first year; this year it drew more than 300,000. That exploding audience for electronic dance music has spilled onto the Strip, where XS, the ground-floor club at Steve Wynn's Encore resort, draws an average of 7,000 people on a Saturday night and generates nightly grosses of up to a million dollars. Those numbers are so flattering they've bred imitation: Mandalay Bay has opened a club called Light, and the MGM Grand a pulsating fun palace called Hakkasan. Then there's the Life is Beautiful Festival, which, two months ago, used several blocks of downtown Las Vegas as a sprawling venue. Ticket holders drifted from a pop-up culinary village to an art zone and had access to numerous stages where more than 65 musical acts performed over two days. The festival is expected to become an annual event. At the very least, the inaugural Life is Beautiful was unprecedented-organizers put a fence around 15 blocks of the city. Beautiful-it's a word rarely used by visitors in the retelling of their wild attempts to live up to Sin City's reputation. But for those of us who live here, the word http://www.adirondackblankets.com http://www.adirondackblankets.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Spirit Magazine - December 2013

Spirit Magazine - December 2013
Contents
Gary's Greeting
Gary's Greeting en Español
Star of the Month
Freedom Story
From the Editor
Your Worlds
Your Pictures
Media Center
Spice up your drink repertoire
Eat Drink Sleep
Cook with chickpeas
Stay Overnight in Nashville
The Numbers
Make a Case for Paper Maps
Look out for Bigfoot
Plan Interplanetary Trek
Wise Guide
Co-opt Criticism
Business
Meet your New Favourite Travel Buddy
Provoke Productivity
Tales of a Tippling City
Rediscover Sin City
The Other Side of Vegas
Your Adventure In Albuquerque
Promotional Series: Spirit of Florida
Focus On: Health Resolutions
Calendar
Fun!
Spotlight
Community Outreach
Products & Services
Flight Services
Terminal Maps
Information
Rapid Rewards and A+ Rewards Partners
Route Map
The "If" List

Spirit Magazine - December 2013