Opening night · Nov. 28, 1995
The Unknown Comic
Murray Langston - the paper bag itself - opened the 105-seat Lighthouse.
Up the escalator · Lighthouse Lounge · late‑nite live
The Showroom
A man with a paper bag on his head opened the room. A Prince tribute band closed it, eleven years later, two nights before the whole place went dark.
105
seats
every night was the front row
Purple Reign at the Boardwalk, October 28, 2005 · photo: Flickr user 38017946@N00, © the photographer. Full provenance.
See tonight’s billThe smallest showroom on the Strip
Close enough to see the sequins.
The Lighthouse booked like it had nothing to lose, because it didn’t. One hundred and five seats put every laugh, sideburn and guitar solo almost in your lap.
Guests remembered “pretty good free entertainment,” a Prince impersonator strolling the floor with a bucket of dollar tokens, and drinks arriving without an arena’s worth of walking.
- 1995
- the Lighthouse opens
- 7:30
- the early set
- 11 PM
- the late show
- 2 nights
- between the final show and closing
Now appearing · 1995–2006
Tonight’s bill.
Four acts from the casino’s own poster wall, restored to feature size. The room changed names and prices; the promise stayed the same: somebody was going on tonight.
$19.95 · live nightly
The Dream King
Trent Carlini held the Lighthouse from about 1996 to 2001. The price wandered to $24.95; the sideburns never did.
7:30 PM · early set
Spectrum
Motown and R&B in matching grey suits, warming the room before the late show.
11 PM · late show
Purple Reign
THE Prince tribute, nightly (dark Mondays) from 2001 through the last Saturday, January 7, 2006.
These program portraits survived at dial-up size. Open any frame for the full image; Credits & Sources carries the restoration history.
Commercial break · 1998
The Dream King came through the tube.
Trent Carlini, casino lights, Holiday Inn neon and thirty seconds of pure late-night Las Vegas television.
The Boardwalk sold the room everywhere: on local television, in a full multi-act show bill, and beside the city’s endless Elvis sightings.
The actual 1998 Boardwalk Casino commercial with Trent Carlini, preserved by Old Vegas Videos on YouTube. Nothing loads until you press play.
LIGHTHOUSE LOUNGE · TONIGHT
SpectrumMotown + R&B
Comedy Clubdrink included
Purple ReignTHE Prince tribute
Free lounge acts between everything, because a dark stage sells no drinks.
The last Saturday · January 7, 2006
Two nights before dark.
Purple Reign played the Boardwalk’s final show, then moved to the House of Blues. The Lighthouse had made it all the way to the last weekend.
On those last nights the lounge kept its own wake. The house band drank free - the bartenders knew the score - and the singer slept in the parking garage between sets and loved every minute of it. Her words, not ours.
“A hundred and five seats meant the back row was still the front row.”
Photos: Flickr user 38017946@N00 · © the photographer
Not a typo
The whole room fit in three digits.
Modern Las Vegas counts a showroom in thousands. The Lighthouse counted one hundred and five chairs, an upstairs bar and a stage close enough to pass the performer a dollar token.
- 01 No binoculars
- 02 No nosebleeds
- 03 No Mondays - the room went dark one night a week their 2004 sales kit
Daytime booking · Cupid’s corner
Then step outside and get married.
White rails, cedar shingles, garden ceremonies and banquet tables set for twenty-five to two hundred and fifty.
Couples married at the cheapest address on the Strip and got the same desert sunset as everybody paying ten times more. When the casino closed, collector Lonnie Hammargren bought the gazebo whole and trucked it home.
Some marriages outlast the venue.
This venue is trying to outlast the marriages.
Curtain call
The room was tiny.
The memories never learned the scale.
Saw a show here? Take a bow in the guestbook
LIGHTHOUSE LOUNGE · 1995–2006