Bachelor and Bachelorette Parties Grow Up
A few years ago, when Las Vegas native Bri Steck was deciding what to call her then-fledgling concierge company—which organizes dining, nightlife, and entertainment itineraries for tourists ready to get their party on—she purposely avoided the word “bachelorette.” To meet the rising demand for divorce parties, now about 10 percent of her business, she went with Vegas Girls Night Out (VGNO).
“I know bachelorettes get crazy, but it’s only to an extent because they’re getting ready to spend the rest of their life with somebody,” Steck says. “When you’re having a divorce party, you don’t have to worry about anybody else. There’s no guilt there. There’s nobody to answer to at home.”
Banning says a group of friends celebrating a divorce might be a bit older—and more financially solvent—than a gaggle of future bridesmaids. That means cocktails at an exclusive speak-easy instead of Jell-O shots, and shelling out for capacious accommodations instead of cramming 10 people into a single hotel room.
“These ladies are established,” she says. “They’ve been around the block. They’re not wearing the penis hats. They’re not wearing matching T-shirts. You can have some debauchery, but then you can go back to your beautiful suite.”
What Happens (Only) in Vegas
While there was a time when a trip to Sin City might’ve involved posting up at a smoky poker table for an entire afternoon, today visitors embrace a more diverse range of activities. According to the 2018 Las Vegas Visitor Profile Study, just released by the LVCVA, although 74 percent of visitors gambled while in town, two-thirds (67 percent) did so for two hours or less per day. That leaves plenty of time for endeavors like seeing a show, a choice favored by nearly 6 in 10 visitors.
Or, as someone once told MGM’s Clough: “I want to do good things during the day and bad things at night.”
Some venues have fully embraced their only-in-Vegas-ness by marketing specifically to the divorce-party crowd. For instance, the Just Divorced package ($499) at Machine Guns Vegas, a self-described “luxury gun range,” encourages divorcées to take a machine gun to their wedding dress and marriage certificate while wearing a black “Just Divorced” sash.
But often it’s just Las Vegas itself that’s enough, no official divorce-party label needed. Banning’s clients have embraced activities that their husbands might have pooh-poohed, including a Grand Canyon-from-above helicopter excursion (“Her husband was like, ‘That’s a waste of time, it’s too touristy’”), top-notch seats to Jennifer Lopez, and private meet-and-greets with Britney Spears.
Not surprisingly, mending shreds of a broken heart with barely any shred of clothing is a popular option as well.
VGNO’s divorce-party clients especially appreciate the VIP seating at Thunder From Down Under—say, around the very tables the oiled-up Aussies-in-thongs dance on. Steck’s husband co-owns the all-male revue.