"Old Vegas," home to historic downtown Las Vegas and the iconic Fremont Street experience, is far off the beaten path of the Vegas Strip. Visitors enter a time warp where, despite a massive 1,375-foot LED canopy covering the street, casinos and hotels are still adorned by bright marquees and $5 tables.
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The Circa Resort and Casino had other plans. Built from the ground up between 2019-20 on 2.78 acres of land, the tallest resort in Downtown Vegas has redefined the casino experience—and the sportsbook and the poolside experience while they were at it—for visitors to the city built on excess and endless fun.
If you follow my work here on SCN, then you know my two favorites topics are sports venues and immersive experiences. Considering Circa combines both of those into one jolly good experience, I was thrilled when Craig Treadwell, AV engineering principal-Circa Hospitality Group, and Chris Holloway, director AV services, Circa Hospitality Group, offered to give me an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour from the ground floor to the roof top.
To say I left impressed is an understatement.
Upon walking into the casino, guests are carded, with their IDs being swiped into the system. As Treadwell and Holloway explained, this is more than simply an age check. Circa uses its propriety technology to track data and metrics, such as where people come from, so they can adjust their massive video walls of sporting events accordingly. If the casino is overwhelmingly full of Michigan residents, sorry Ohio State fans, but you are going to get a heavy dose of the Wolverines on college football game day.
Daktronics displays at the Concierge Desk and Vegas Vickie—the 46-year-old, towering cowgirl who once greeted visitors atop the now-demolished Glitter Gulch and has been retrofitted by Young Electric Sign Company (YESCO) and given a fresh set of neon—immediately grab guests attention as an appetizer to what's in store.
"A sportsbook so big, we built a casino around it."
So, what is in store? A Pro AV smorgasbord for sports lovers of all kinds. The indoor centerpiece is a 144-foot-wide, three-story high, 2.5mm pixel pitch video wall in its sportsbook. A Crestron DM NVX AV over IP platform was selected to power the many displays and video walls. There are 321 Crestron NVX decoders throughout to solve arguably the biggest challenge for the casino: Latency. Every second counts for sports watchers, and Crestron's platform enables the casino team to synchronize the same content across multiple displays with hardly any lag. RNWY software, which is easily configured to automate audio, video, and lighting, powers a tablet that can be used within the casino or remotely to keep up with all the current action. The air conditioning and climate control, which is uniquely run through the floor, is controlled separately.
Speaking of challenges, both Treadwell and Holloway agreed that one of the biggest was bandwidth. We are in the age of streaming, and Circa follows suit, with EverPass Premium Streaming, Apple TV, Rokus, as well as licensing for Peacock and Netflix. With more streaming comes more internet bandwidth, and luckily for Circa, while they may have had to reroute or add a few solutions here and there, Treadwell and Holloway have dodged major upgrades to accommodate that streaming.
A pair of Analog Way Aquilon processors keep the picture perfect, able to power the 70-million-ish pixels, support multiple 4K signals, and show multiple games in different zones at once. A 2.5mm pixel pitch ticker, also from Daktronics, spans the bottom of the entire video wall, running scores and advertisements for Circa, which is driven by custom content software. The odds boards are simply run by PCs, and Treadwell, Holloway, and their team can configure the massive screen in a variety of ways by showing multiple games, or potentially, just one.
d&b audiotechnik solutions run rampant throughout the casino—although Meyer Sound, Sonance, and Martin subs all have a spot in the casino as well—as 24C-E column speakers and 27S subwoofers, with several E6 loudspeakers for frontfills, power the audio from play-by-play to music. A Q-SYS system powers the audio throughout the casino from the main floor to the pool, to the Legacy Club and ballrooms, adding distributed amps throughout the casino and restaurant area. Lighting? Of course there is advanced technology here as well, with an ETC Mosaic system running the lighting throughout the casino. Each zone is individually controlled and scheduled for all hours of the day.
Just in case that video wall wasn't large enough for you, the adjacent Mega Bar has 50 LG TVs synched and controlled from a tablet that span the same length as the sportsbook display. There is no escaping sports inside Circa, so if you are into betting, there is no better sportsbook to be.
Sink or swim.
Unless, of course, you secure a spot at Stadium Swim. Stadium Swim is where sports watching meets pool parties. There are six pools that hold up to 4,000 people. And front and center is the 40-foot high, 143-foot-long HD Daktronics video wall, bringing what is inside to poolside. The screen runs 24 hours a day and shows UFC fights, hosts fantasy football parties, has scheduled events like "4th of July Swim" and "Weenies and Bikinis," and this year, World Cup watch parties.
Could you imagine watching your fantasy football championship here with your entire league? Go ahead, picture it, I already have.
The outdoor video wall is powered by the same technology as inside, with the Crestron DM NVX platform, an Analog Way Aquilon C+ powering the 13.7-million-pixel display, and similar d&b audiotechnik sound system. Instead of a ticker beneath the board, there is a DJ booth—which runs audio to the d&b V-Series line array for the main Stadium Swim PA—which welcomes in-house DJs and the genre's biggest names to plug in and pump out music at events and parties.
Follow the sign(age) to more AV.
As with any casino, advertisements and guest instruction are vital. There is digital signage aplenty throughout the casino. A BrightSign signage platform, working collaboratively with Otis Elevator Company, is behind the signage in the elevators; however, Circa also turned to the LG SuperSign CMS to power the signage as well from the casino floor to the exclusive Legacy Club. The system feeds into the Crestron encoders and is routed anywhere they want, like that Legacy Club, where a live ticker tracks the value of 500 two-ounce gold bars. I had never seen so much money in my life, and the fact that I was able to see it changing value was pretty darn neat.
Adding to the technological prowess of the casino is a broadcasting studio located right next to the sportsbook. The Vegas Stats & Information Network (VSiN) airs shows right from the venue, which now includes live broadcasts to Sirius XM Channel 158. Among the slew of Pro AV technology hidden within these hallowed halls, there is now Broadcast AV, making the Circa one of the most complete technological hotels in Vegas.
Prior to 2015, when Derek and Greg Stevens bought the Las Vegas Club to ultimately tear it down and build Las Vegas' best-kept secret, nothing new had been added to the Fremont Street area since 1980. Along came the Circa and reimagined what the Vegas experience can be, and perhaps the most spectacular part is that they don't seem finished yet. With rumors of a Circa 2 always circling, this technology team may only be scratching the surface.
