Signs Flash Brightly--and Incessantly : Neon War Is Raging in Las Vegas

When President Richard M. Nixon turned off the lights in this neon capital in 1973, the city’s largest hotel pressed a horse into service to turn a generator that kept the resort’s marquee glowing.

Such is the ingenuity that has fueled the neon wars that flash incessantly between downtown’s Glitter Gulch and the electric ribbon strung across the desert known as the Strip.

Las Vegas, Tokyo and Mexico have been described as the sign capitals of the world, with the art rapidly moving from the old days of the 40-watt bulb to the modern age of electronic wizardry.

Bigger, brighter and better are the goals as the city’s resorts spend millions for the glow designed to coax billions of dollars from the 13 million tourists who visit the city annually.

Toasty Warmth

Visitors to downtown’s Glitter Gulch find the millions of bulbs and miles of neon tubing provide a toasty warmth on chilly winter nights.

On the Strip, tourists stop to snap pictures in front of the sprawling neon artwork of the Stardust Hotel. The 18-story tall sign’s 40,000 light bulbs are enough to illuminate a small town. There are 30 miles of wiring in the sign, 38 tons of steel, enough paint to coat 27 houses and enough concrete to provide the foundations for those homes.

Down the Strip there’s Lucky, the giant 13-story neon clown beckoning gamblers and families to the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino. Further north is the Sahara hotel’s $1-million, 22-story sign. The city’s highest, it requires a special built-in crane at the top to allow workers to reach its upper limits.

The newest entry in the neon battle is the Palace Station Casino along Interstate 15, which feeds millions of Californians into the city annually. The sign is more than 12 stories tall and covers 7,500 feet of surface area.

The city’s bright lights have long gained worldwide attention.

Manufacturers Tour Plant

“We have a steady flow of sign manufacturers from Japan tour our plant every year, checking to see the latest innovations,” said Richard Linford, service manager for Young Electric Sign Co. (Yesco).

The Salt Lake City-based company controls 70% to 75% of the signs in Las Vegas. Yesco crews fan out across the city nightly with tape recorders, taking note of signs that have lost their glow and bulbs that have succumbed to slingshots, rocks, BB guns, weather or age, Linford said.

Linford has been with Yesco 20 years and remembers another era when Las Vegas casinos were content with smaller, less flashy signs.

“I don’t think anyone thought the signs would grow to what they are today,” Linford said. “The casinos started out with real small neon signs. But everyone wanted to get something just a little big bigger.”

The signs have long fueled conjecture about the tab of turning this city on.

Not Biggest Customer

Nevada Power Co. says the city’s flashy resorts are not their biggest customer. Topping the list is the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, were the nation’s nuclear weapons are tested. Second is Nellis Air Force Base. The city’s seven top resorts do rank among the top 12 electric customers, however.

Most Las Vegas resorts kept their signs lighted 24 hours a day until the Arab oil embargo began in 1973.

On Nov. 16, 1973, hotels shut off their outside signs to comply with President Nixon’s request for voluntary cutbacks in energy.

That’s when the Las Vegas Hilton recruited an aging work horse to shuffle in a circle three or four hours a night, nursing 5,500 watts of power from a generator and keeping the hotel marquee aglow while much of the city was dark.

“All it cost us was a little bit of hay,” Hilton spokesman Bruce Banke recalled. “In fact, if we could only figure a way to do it, we could put a lot of horses to work now.”

$4 Million a Year

The resort, which includes the world’s largest hotel, spends about $4 million annually on electricity--consuming as much power as a city of 15,000 people.

As the effects of the embargo began to ebb, Las Vegas resorts were allowed to light their signs for three hours on the weekend, then three hours a day. Soon it became business as usual, with the signs glowing around the clock.

When the bitter cold winter of 1977 left Eastern states with dwindling gas supplies, the Nevada Public Service Commission, in a symbolic, energy-saving gesture, adopted a regulation banning the use of lighted signs during the day.

That gesture was not enough to quiet some critics. In U.S. Senate hearings last year considering distribution of cheap Hoover Dam power, Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, (D-Ohio) criticized providing cheap power to light Las Vegas signs.

But sign company officials say new technology, such as the $1 million computerized neon message center at Caesars Palace, can actually save money.

Nevada Power officials say it costs about $2,500 a month to operate the largest signs in Las Vegas, the same as a dozen years ago when signs were smaller and energy costs cheaper.