Take Off

About Take Off

Vital Vegas ranked the display No. 4 on his 2014 list of “10 Things You Can Rub for Good Luck in Las Vegas Without Getting Arrested,” a list that featured three other Caesars Palace entries: the hand of the Caesars statue (No. 1); Joe Louis’s boxing gloves (No. 8); and the toe of Michelangelo’s David replica (No. 9).

The barge itself never actually floated, by the way. That was just a myth. It sat on a fixed platform that created a mild rocking motion. That piece of Vegas engineering, like the statue’s original perch, is now history.

The barge functioned as an intimate stage graced by legendary performers, including Dionne Warwick, Blues Traveler, Matt Goss, and CeeLo Green. Its final performer was another Vegas icon rumored to be powered by hydraulics: Wayne Newton. His “Up Close & Personal” residency in 2019 was the lounge’s final act before the pandemic shut down the Strip for 90 days and closed Cleopatra’s Barge for good in March 2020.

What is Take Off?

Belmont Park reopened for racing Friday (September 18) following a three-year, $455 million redevelopment, ushering in a new era for New York horse racing.

A sold-out crowd of 6,000 attended the first day of racing at the rebuilt Long Island track, wagering almost $14 million on a nine-race card headlined by the $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Japanese star Forever Young won the feature race, while all-sources wagering for the day totaled $13,997,422, according to BloodHorse.

How to play Take Off

During a previous Sphere earnings call, Sphere chair Jim Dolan teased a “broomstick ride with a witch.”

That line got repeated as part of “Wizard 2.0,” with most media outlets assuming it was to be among the production’s new effects.

Our suspicion is that Dolan was referring to an immersive video simulator—likely intended for the lobby before the movie begins.