Life Is (Still) Beautiful and Aviators Are Grounded

An emoticon guide to Las Vegas’ top headlines

By Larry Braverman

How Should Las Vegas Remember 1 October?

Las Vegas can never move on from the 1 October shootings of 2017. We can endure, but the city and its residents will always be healing—never fully healed. One way to make it a little more bearable is for us to have a place to honor the victims, survivors and first responders. Now through March 14, the 1 October Memorial Advisory Committee is hearing ideas and input for a permanent memorial—whichever form it may take.

The group has launched an online survey to collect responses from the public. Among the questions are whether or not you feel the memorial should be erected at the site of the shooting and which features you would like to see at the memorial. You can also share the survey online using the hashtag #1OctoberMemorial. 

Life Is (Still) Beautiful

🎤 🎶 🎟 We don’t have a lineup yet, we don’t even know if we’ll be fully out of the pandemic yet, but come hell and/or high water, Life Is Beautiful is coming back to Downtown Las Vegas. The festival, which took 2020 off (us, too), will be staged Sept. 17-19, and early bird tickets go on sale Thursday (March 4).

General admission starts at $295 (plus fees), and a super-charged “All-In” pass is $2,895 (also plus fees). If you’re waiting for your stimulus check before you buy, you can do a layaway plan—that’s right, layaway is back—for every tier level but All-In. It’s too soon to announce the lineup—still waiting for so many artists to announce tours in 2021—but you can sign up for a text announcement when you buy your tickets.

Aviators Grounded Until May

⚾️ 😷 💉 We’ll never forgive the pandemic for robbing our Las Vegas Aviators of their status as the next great minor league baseball team. After a massively successful inaugural season, one that saw Las Vegas Ballpark win the “MiLB Triple-A Best of the Ballparks” vote, the Aviators were grounded for all of 2020, and now their 2021 season has been delayed four weeks to May 6.

The delay will allow for minor league players to receive one of the COVID-19 vaccines before the season starts. That’s good news, but as anyone who’s ever flown standby knows, waiting is the hardest part. 

Handsome Men Coming Soon to Sahara!

💪🏽 👀 🎟 Las Vegas shows are coming back in a big way, but we’ll have to wait a tad longer to see the beefcake studs of “Magic Mike Live.” The announcement came this week that Channing Tatum’s Las Vegas production will open at its new home—Sahara Las Vegas—on Aug. 27. The delay is due to Nevada’s continuing public gathering restrictions, which limit the kind of intimacy and audience interaction that’s made “Magic Mike” a hit. We’ll be patient.