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The Killers open AEG’s new Vegas arena
The Las Vegan band will be the first to play the T-Mobile Arena, with Nicki Minaj and Guns N' Roses following later this week
By Jon Chapple on 04 Apr 2016
image © Bill Feldberg
A headline show by The Killers will mark the official opening of the new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas this Wednesday (6 April).
The band will be joined by fellow Las Vegan Shamir and ‘Mr Las Vegas’, Wayne Newton.
Nicki Minaj and special guest Ariana Grande will follow on Thursday, with a reunited Guns N’ Roses, supported by Alice in Chains, playing Friday and Saturday.
The US$375 million arena, a joint venture between AEG and MGM Resorts International, hopes to host 100 ticketed events a year: about 50 concerts and 25 sporting events, plus boxing and UFC matches, award shows and “other events”, AEG’s Mark Faber tells Vegas Inc. “We seat 17,500 for hockey, 18,500 for basketball, 20,000 for boxing and UFC and for in-stage concerts we could do 10,000 to 12,000 plus.”
It is hoped the new arena will lure a NHL ice-hockey team to Las Vegas.
AEG (Anschutz Entertainment Group) originally announced its intention to build an arena in Vegas in 2007 in partnership with Caesars Entertainment (then Harrah’s Entertainment), adjacent to Harrah’s’ Paris Las Vegas and Bally’s casinos, before plans were stalled by the financial crisis.
