Whenever I go down to Freemont Street in Las Vegas I’m always surprised again by just how different it is from The Strip, and how cool, cheap and fun it is!
Freemont Street is basically an outdoor, covered mall connecting about 10 older casinos plus a bunch of shops and restaurants. Of course, the main attraction is the actual covered canopy.
The LED display “canopy”, rising 90 feet in height and stretching 1,400 feet along the Fremont Street Experience promenade from Main Street to Fourth Street is held up by 16 columns, each weighing 26,000 pounds and can support 400,000 pounds, and 43,000 struts.
A section comprising one fiftieth of the total canopy equals the size of the world’s current largest electric sign. Originally, nearly 2.1 million incandescent lights were housed in the canopy. With the completion of the $17 million upgrade, more than 12 million LED lamps illuminate the overhead canopy. Within the canopy itself are 220 speakers capable of producing 550,000 watts of sound.
Here is a little video I filmed of the actual show that I saw. There are others, and they run them once per hour ever hour after dusk.
In addition to the video, I took a boatload of photos, and here are a bunch I felt like sharing publicly.
-
- Mermaids Freemont Street
-
- Plaza Hotel Freemont Street
-
- La Bayou Freemont Street
Yeah, I was actually shocked at how nice the Nugget seemed too. I think I’ll try it next time I see a really cheap rate there when the Strip is charging a fortune. It’ll make the cab ride worth it…
John
Yeah, but Jenny you have to trust me on this… if you ever make it over to Vegas you aren’t going to want to shop on Freemont Street. Nothing but tourist junk. The really good shopping is over on the Strip at Ceasar’s mall and the Venetian mall. The only thing you’ll want to do on Freemont is play the slots and have a party! ;-)
John P.
Sorry John, but you’ve really lost me on this one, lol
I honestly can’t think if anything that could make my shopping experience much worse than that lot going on. Waste of money! How about they’d used the money they wasted on that to reduce the prices in the stores ;)
Even though downtown Vegas is older and not as flashy as the Strip, the Fremont Street Experience makes up for it. Last time I was there, the FSE was based on an air show with planes flying up and down the street. It was quite amazing.
During that trip, I also stayed at the Golden Nugget which surprised me. Contrary to some of the other hotels downtown, the Golden Nugget is rated as a 5 star hotel and they live up to it. Very clean inside and the restaurant was very good.
I still prefer to stay on the strip however.