Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Biloxi Grand opening
Last week was just the initial grand opening, here is the REAL grand opening!
The skinny: Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Biloxi, one of the Coast’s hottest new destination resorts, celebrates its grand opening with a concert featuring Three Doors Down tonight followed by a performance by Kid Rock Saturday.
Hard luck casino?: On Saturday, which is the lucky date of 7-7-07, the Hard Rock Casino officially will be christened by the franchise’s traditional smashing of guitars underneath the resort’s huge, 112-foot neon Peavey guitar at 3 p.m.
“We have about 40 people that are going to be smashing guitars,” said Kevin O’Sullivan, vice president of operations. “Instead of cutting a ribbon like a normal place does, being Hard Rock we’ve got to smash the guitars.”
Things weren’t always so lucky for the casino, though, as it was originally set to open two days after Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005.
The storm caused major damage to the building, which cost $235 million to build. The iconic sign survived the storm, but the building had to be rebuilt to the tune of $150 million, and it finally opened its doors on June 30, 678 days behind schedule.
“The first day I believe we had just over 12,000 people,” O’Sullivan said. “It’s funny, the last few days has made it feel like this was the opening that should have been … it really was a fantastic opening with hardly any glitches.”
Features of the resort include a 12-story hotel with 318 rooms and suites; a casino with 1,445 slots, 50 table games and a poker room; the Rock Spa, a full-service spa; a pool; and a 1,200-capacity music venue.
The resort also houses five restaurants, including a Ruth Chris Steak House and the franchise’s bread and butter, the Hard Rock Cafe.
This is the fourth casino in the world Hard Rock has opened, with others in Las Vegas and Florida.
Sold Out Rock: The inaugural live music events at Hard Rock Live, the resort’s music venue, are unfortunately but unsurprisingly sold out.
Fittingly, the first act to perform at the venue will be hometown heroes Three Doors Down, who hail from Escatawpa.
“I believe they requested to be the first band to play here,” O’Sullivan said.
On Saturday’s big 7-7-7 opening Detroit rocker Kid Rock will perform. There may not be any other musician who emobodies Hard Rock Hotel’s spirit better.
Even the third concert Hard Rock has scheduled, ’80s rockers Poison on July 12, is sold out as well.
O’Sullivan said that he’s very happy with the interest in the resort already, and expects the weekend’s festivities to draw even larger crowds.
“It’s making us feel very comfortable considering we didn’t really market the (soft) opening that strong,” he said. “We more directed our marketing push for this weekend.”
- Carey Miller Clarion Ledger