TWEET ME AT KENNE-DOG, I NEED A
HALLOWEEN COSTUME.
CAN’T WATCH? DVR IS.
No, neither can I.
It’s too essential.
To not only our economy, but to our nature
as human beings.
But all the entertainment that we so often take for
granted doesn’t come easy.
It takes strict discipline.
Good.
That was good.
Feats of engineering.
This gap is way too excessive.
And more often than not, some serious patience.
They must have had some party in here.
To keep Americans like you entertained.
A wise man once said the world is a stage
and the stage is a world of entertainment.
He was right, you know.
Because in America alone entertainment
is a 600 billion dollar a year industry.
That’s more than the gross domestic
product of Sweden.
Why so high?
Because we’re also responsible for creating
a full third of the entertainment enjoyed
around the globe.
From sports to music to cinema.
But in 2020, as you may have noticed,
a little virus called Covid-19 knocked
that industry for a serious loop.
Stadiums sat empty.
Sound stages lay silent.
And concerts cancelled by the thousand.
As the entertainers of our nation fell powerless
to provide our favorite diversions.
Perhaps at a time when we needed them most.
It was a startling glimpse of what our country
might look like without this all-important industry.
But mercifully, things are starting to look up.
As mandates lift across the nation,
so too are the great pillars of amusement
coming back to life.
And nowhere more so than the city
that entertainment built.
Las Vegas.
This year more than 40 million tourists are
expected to come through.
Bringing the money that’s critical to Sin City’s
very existence.
So all across the strip resorts are racing to
prepare for the kind of crowds they haven’t seen
since before the pandemic.
Resorts like Circus Circus.
Here at one of the oldest and most iconic casinos,
the worst of the plague reduced capacity
and business to a mere 25 percent of
its former glory.
But today they’re ramping the entire operation
back up to 100 percent.
From gaming floors to family arcades
to live entertainment.
Even their very own theme park.
The Adventuredome.
That’s where this morning we find ride engineer,
Joey Rukavina, making his rounds.
About 90 feet in the air.
On the tracks of the El Roco rollercoaster.
I’m checking the track for structural integrity
and all the mounting hardware to make sure
everything’s tight and in good, safe condition.
Across the country more than 700 rollercoasters
like this one are ramping back up to full capacity.
And before they do it’s up to guys like Joey
to make sure that they’re fit for all that usage.
So before opening to the public,
part of his job is personally ensuring
that each and every one of this ride’s
5,000 bolts is securely fastened to the track.
Fortunately, he has a visual aid.
So that is the torque stripe.
So when it, the connection’s made,
you put your torque wrench on it,
you tighten it to the specific torque.
And then once it’s torqued,
you make this little line right here.
So if this bolt were to come loose,
that line would not line up,
then you know you have to check it.
So far, so good.
But there’s still another 50 yards of track to
inspect before the ride can safely be opened.
It’s something that I’ve done for a long time,
I’m comfortable with it.
But there is danger involved.
You could slip and fall and, you know,
hit something on the way down.
So you have to be very focused.
You have to pay attention to what you’re doing.
Whoa.
So everything is in good condition,
there are no discrepancies in any of
the welds or the connections.
Everything looks tight.
We’re safe for the public.
Nice morning climb.
Invigorating.
But Joey’s morning rollercoaster rounds
still aren’t quite finished.
He also needs to check the equipment
that runs on the tracks.
We have to QC the car, which is a quality
control check.
So the car sits on the rails and these wheels
right here hold it side to side.
These wheels right here hold it up and down.
So now I’m just gonna give this a quick once over.
Joey’s QC check basically boils down to ensuring
that the wheels holding the car to the track
are not too tight and not too lose.
Because either scenario could quickly turn
an afternoon of wholesome entertainment
into disaster.
That’s good.
Oh.
Oh, that’s no good.
Theme parks aren’t the only pastime reopening
to the American public.
So too is one of our nation’s
favorite vices, gambling.
You know, the offline kind.
And wouldn’t you know it, Circus Circus has that too.
They’re bringing back all 100,000 feet
of their gaming space,
complete with blackjack, roulette,
craps and of course, slot machines.
And keeping those machines lit up
is the full-time job of senior slot technician
Steve Hopper.
Ever since they started lifting the restrictions
we’ve been daily getting busier and busier.
You never know what you’re gonna get.
Every day brings a new experience.
For Steve, that experience has mostly to
do with making sure the casino’s 1,000
slot machines, now all back online,
are well looked after.
And that kicks off behind the scenes,
in the somewhat less glitzy
slot department office.
This is kind of our starting point after
we come in, clock in in the morning,
and we come over here and get our tools on
and get ready to work.
Then we come over to our printer over here
and we look for work orders.
And this one happens to be for a possible bill
validator situation over on bank 718.
That means I got to get out there on the floor,
check it out and see what we can find.
Though Circus Circus still keeps coin-operated
machines on site, the majority of slots
here these days are higher tech.
And as we all know, more bells and whistles
also means more that can go wrong.
Well, it says we got a device offline right now.
So let’s...
and it’s showing a bill validator error.
A bill validator is the device inside the machine
here that accepts your cash
and accepts your tickets and for the most part
without that it doesn’t work.
So we’ll have to run this over to the ET shop
for repair.
So we can get this game back up and playing.
While Steve works to keep his gamblers gaming,
several floors up another team of Circus Circus
employees are just starting their shift.
Because fully reopening the resort today also
means making sure that all of its hotel rooms
are ready for inbound customers.
And while it’s the job of nearly 300 guest room
attendants, or GRAs, to clean those rooms,
none of it would be possible without
housekeeping runners like Crystal Ruesga.
Who provide those workers with critical support.
You really don’t know what you’re gonna walk
into from day to day.
So one day you could walk in and have no service
calls at all.
And service calls is the ones where the guest call
for towels, shampoo, lotion,
that kind of thing.
So that’s what my job is for the day and to check
all my hallways, locker rooms, stairwells.
It’s gonna be a busy day.
When she’s not making hospitality runs
or helping out the cleaning staff,
Crystal also maintains all common areas
in the hotel.
So what I’m doing at this moment is I’m vacuuming
my guest areas by the elevator.
It’s very important that we keep this area clean,
because this is the first impression after they
check into the hotel.
So if this area isn’t clean then they might get
the impression that the room’s not gonna be
very clean either.
27, 7, 37.
Need three sets of towels.
27, 7, 37, need three sets of towels.
Copy, Crystal?
Copy, Mike.
Two, seven, seven, three, seven.
I just received a, a service call on my device
for a room that the guests are looking
for towels.
So right now I got to go down to the 27th floor.
At Circus Circus, housekeepers like Crystal
tend to a whopping 4,000 guest rooms.
And as all those rooms return to 100 percent
capacity, service calls like these are growing
more and more frequent.
Which is what Crystal and her colleagues might call
a good problem.
Housekeeping.
Hi. Hi.
You called for some towels?
Thank you.
Oh you’re welcome, I also brought you some...
a couple extra things. Thank.
That you might need. Thank you.
Toilet paper, shampoo and that kind of thing.
Thank you. Anything else?
No, thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Enjoy your day. Bye.
Hospitality run finished, Crystal can now get
back to vacuuming.
Crystal, a trashed room, 26-7-14, trashed room, copy?
Or not.
Copy that, Maricella, two, six, seven, one,
four, trashed room.
The phrase trashed room is a fairly common one
in this line of work.
But always a little daunting.
It’s code for a room that is in worse
than usual condition.
And it’s Crystal’s job to do the heaviest
cleaning first.
Housekeeping.
Housekeeping, room check, housekeeping, hello,
housekeeping.
Oh boy.
♪ LiMu Emu & Doug ♪