Why yes, Ms. Biel, I AM going your way!
Last night Star photographer Michelle Pemberton and I headed out to Shelbyville with Indy.com’s Leslie Bailey and Jesika Gunter to check out the grand opening of Indiana Live! casino’s new permanent facility. We’re putting together a big package for Indy.com the Magazine in a few weeks but here is our quick and dirty post-mortem of the event.
- The ribbon cutting was quick and anti-climactic. By the time we waded through the crowd to the media area to shoot the event they’d already snipped it and sent people down the escalator to the casino floor. No sign of Justin TImberlake and Jessica Biel, whose attendance at the ribbon cutting was implied by press releases earlier that day.
- We rocked a V.I.P. party at Mosaic, the dance club inside Indiana Live!, in part because J-Tim was said to be attending. The bar is cool, generally winning praise from nightlife aficionados Bailey and Gunter, but there were some snags like the mixer guns weren’t working and there was no olive juice for martinis. Still no celebrity sightings.
- We attempted to grab dinner at Maker’s Mark Lounge but it was reservations only (wish I knew). Next stop was the NASCAR Sports Grille but it was reservations only (wish I knew). We ended up eating at Live! Market, which I call Turbo Food Court. It has stations for steak, pizza, stir fry, salads, sandwiches and smoothies and it was surprisingly good. Entrees range from $6-$18 and there is a really good selection of regional craft beer.
- The casino allows smoking anywhere food is not served, so non-smokers should visit soon before the place reeks like an ashtray.
- We wrapped up our night with short visits to Angel Rock Bar, which could stand to lose the out-of-place gaming tables, the Gold and Platinum player clubs, and the Center Bar before blowing a few bucks on video roulette. All in all the experience was interesting and entertaining though not entirely in the ways I was expecting. My immediate reaction is that it’s worth checking out at least once. Mosaic bar has the potential for greatness and the restaurants could hold their own in Indy for sure.
- We left a little after 11 p.m. and never heard tell of Timberlake/Biel in the building. I call shenanigans on the whole thing.
If you want to peek inside Indiana Live, check out this gallery.
March 14th, 2009 at 5:56 am
From the ads I saw, I thought you would’ve seen Barack Obama there
March 14th, 2009 at 6:42 am
How does Indiana Live rate vs. Hoosier park? Sounds like live has more restaurants and is aimed at a younger crowd
March 14th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I can’t say because I haven’t been to Hoosier Park but Indiana Live! is definitely trying to appeal to a younger crowd with Mosaic/Angel Rock Bar. The Maker’s Mark Lounge and NASCAR appeal to a wide age range.
March 14th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Not sure what you were expecting? I worked on a television spot for a casino once, nasty place, for like 14 hours! The constant droning sound of the slot machines (a constant rrmrmmmm the entire day), the computer network linked gaming machines, ID card-instead-of-using-coins systems, and ever present “big brother” concealed video cameras freaked me out and made it feel like the whole thing was a scam. Sure, maybe those things (the ID card, networked games, and cameras) are there to prevent fraud, but it sure seemed to me like it would be easy to rig the system so that “big brother” decided when you won or lost a game. A system where they could determine whether you were winning “too often” and could “scale back” your earnings. This is all speculation, of course. But, it wasn’t a happy place, either, being surrounded by poor, lower middle class proletariat spending their last pennies on a rigged system that was impossible to get ahead in. Sad, very sad. On top of this, the ad’s we were filming featured young, attractive folk going out for a night on the town. Surely, they must have known that casino’s only exist because of pensions, not “young money”. Oh well, not for me. Indiana Live! has their work cut out for them to get me interested in their product, that’s for sure.
March 14th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Expectations color stories, I try to be as blank a slate as possible.
March 23rd, 2009 at 2:34 pm
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