The Las Vegas club scene is about to turn up. On March 13th, Omnia will open in the strip’s iconic Caesars Palace, and inside of it will be what could become Sin City’s most exclusive VIP hangout: Heart of Omnia, or “Heart” for short. The h.wood Group, which is behind some of Los Angeles’ hottest nightclubs, partnered with the Hakkasan Group to create a 25-table, $18 million lounge that will cater to the city’s highest end clientele (starting price for one of those tables: around $3,000).
Step one for standing out from the rest of the strip: no electronic dance music.
“It’ll be ‘80s, rock, everything non-EDM,” said John Terzian, who owns The h.wood Group with Brian Toll. “They can go to the main room and hear Calvin Harris and they can come to us and hear hip-hop,” Toll said.
They also plan to run a tight door and prohibit press and paparazzi (amateur or otherwise).
“The Heart room is going to be a pretty tough room to get into,” said David Arquette, who is a partner in the nightclub. “It is an environment where you try to limit any photos, you bring them in with their friends, you have a little section blocked off, you just try to provide an environment where they can be themselves, they don’t feel like they’re going to get splashed on some website just because they’re having a good time.”
Arquette, who is an actor, is injecting a bit of whimsy into the traditionally plastic Las Vegas landscape. He’s teamed up with the company KNB EFX, which worked on the special effects for “The Chronicles of Narnia,” to create a “really unique disco ball that is unlike anything you’ve ever seen.” He’s also sorting through film archives to find stills and video of old Hollywood to project on LED screens inside Heart.
“Images of Valentino, Laurence Olivier, Fred and Ginger, just all of these sort of romantic entertainment icons,” he said.
From a practical perspective, Terzian said the personal level of service will be a draw for VIPs
“These places in Vegas, they’re almost faceless entities. In this case, they can text me, text Brian, we’ll handle them in,” he said. “It really goes down to being truly hospitable and making sure everyone has a safe haven there.”
Already, A-listers are into it: Heart will host Justin Bieber’s 21st birthday party on March 14th (he hit the milestone on March 1st). If all goes according to plan, maybe he’ll do more than just ring in another year.
“We’re just trying to provide an environment where people can have the time of their lives and maybe fall in love,” said Arquette.