As I was making my way to North Las Vegas to check out this room I have to admit that I was a bit torn. On one hand, I had recently met the technical director and A-1, and they were the kind of production guys I like to hang with–dedicated, down-to-earth and without any "don't you know who I am?" BS. Other production folks in town that I had talked to described The Club at the Cannery as an "A" room in a local casino in the "C" part of town. The important part, they stressed, was that it really was an A-level room. On the other hand, as I cruised further and further north I couldn't help but remember what Hunter S. Thompson had written about North Las Vegas, and how I had kind of avoided it as a result. He described it as where you go if you are "a hooker turning forty." The nicest thing he said was that "North Vegas is where you go when you've f'd up once too often on The Strip, and when you're not even welcome in the cut-rate downtown places around Casino Center." Ouch.
So, I really did not know what to expect. After my visit, I had to send some other folks up there just to make sure I was not seeing something that wasn't there, because this room and the folks who run it not only exceeded my expectations, they blew them right out of the water. Everyone I sent there agreed that this is a very cool room in an unexpected location. Imagine walking through the front doors under what looks like an old-style theater marquee into a decent-sized rectangular room. Big stage, Soundcraft MH-3 at monitor world, and a Midas Heritage 2000 at FOH. VerTec rig. Nice, but it seems a bit much for a room that might hold between 300 and 500. Until, that is, they open the big doors–the ones that you thought were the back wall– and the Club becomes a combo-indoor/outdoor space that can seat more like 2000.
"There are two primary configurations for the venue," explains Technical Director Dave Tennant. "During the warmer months when we can open the doors and create our indoor/outdoor configuration, we have a 1906 seat manifest. When it's too cold to be outside, we make the stage smaller and move it to the south wall of the venue to create a 300 seat cocktail style or a 512 seat concert style venue. We have done events in the past such as boxing matches where we will take the stage out of the room to create one large single level room, and food festivals that incorporate opening the doors between The Club and the casino's buffet, and feeding and entertaining several thousand at a time."
But this is an install, right? That description sounds more like a touring rig. "Every piece of gear we have is racked and ready to be moved," says Tennant. "We could pull a truck up at the dock and go on tour tomorrow. The stage is a Staging Concepts stage, totally portable and able to be configured however we please; the lighting grid is all part of a TomCat ground support roof system with sound bays. We could take it all and do a show in the parking lot if that's what the owners wanted."
The Cannery was first envisioned almost a decade ago when a pair of refugees from the consolidation/corporatization of the Vegas casino world decided to open their own place, and it has been a raging success. "I've never worked for two guys this great," says Tennant. "Bill Paulos (previously with Circus Circus and The Luxor) and Bill Wortman (Caesars) joined together on this project and never looked back. In just three years they've had such great success with this place that we're now building a new property in Pennsylvania and soon hope to break ground on a new Las Vegas property. The support that these two guys have for our department is really incredible. Their mission statement for the company is 'Have Fun, Make Money', and so far we've had a lot of both."
In addition to the Club, the property has nearly completed a major expansion that includes new restaurants, a poker room and a state-of-the-art movie theatre. Tennant has been along for the entire ride.
After working with several audio companies doing the festival circuit throughout the southeast through the early '90s, Tennant helped opened the Palace Theatre in Myrtle Beach in '95 and worked as an assistant to the Audio Director for five years on shows that included the Radio City Christmas Spectacular on their productions in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Detroit, Mich. and Nashville, Tenn. He moved to Washington D.C. in 2000 to be the technical director for The Army Entertainment Division (AED–best described as being kind of like the USO, but all the entertainers and technicians are active duty soldiers who are trained by a group of industry professionals on how to act, sing, dance, focus lights, mix audio, etc., and then get sent out on tour with state-of-the-art equipment to military installations all over the world).
"I was originally contacted in 1998 about the possibility of relocating to Las Vegas to be the technical director of a new locals casino that would be opening soon. The entertainment director, who I would be working for, knew me from many events and festivals that we had ended up on together in the past," Tennant explains. "So I dragged my 8–months-pregnant wife out here to see if it might be something we wanted to do. After falling in love with the area, and agreeing that we wanted to do this, we were told that the project was on hold. Four years later the project was back on and under construction, so we took a chance and moved our family west.
"The day I got to Vegas I was handed a list of gear that somebody from a local A/V company had gotten together and planned on buying as our primary audio system. I don't want to name brands because some of the manufactures do make some excellent equipment, but this wasn't exactly pro gear. So I promptly took the opportunity to go directly to the owners of the project and plead my case. These guys didn't know me from Adam but I guess my new boss had talked me up some, because I walked into the meeting with a $250K budget and walked out with a little over $625,000. I got our Midas and Vertec for FOH and am so much happier than I would have been."
Tennant–and by extension the owners– are smart enough to know that gear is important, but that people are much more so. As we keep saying, it ain't the car, it's the driver. And Tennant's crew is as A-level as his room.
A-1 Don Drakulich hails from Buffalo, N.Y. and has been with the Cannery since its opening, after working the Las Vegas lounge and showroom circuit for a number of years. Tennant first met monitor guy Jim Pittman while working in the AED and brought him to Vegas almost two years ago. Blake Norris, who also works monitors and stage, toured as FOH for The Gin Blossoms and manned the hot seat at the Rockefeller nightclub in Houston, TX. We'll even give some love to the lighting director Matt Druzbik, also from Buffalo and also with the Cannery since it opened, after he spent a number of years touring with acts including Van Halen, Rush, Queensryche, Audioslave and Tina Turner. When asked what they like about their current gig, they all note the quality of both the gear and their fellow crew members, as well as the opportunity to get in on the ground floor with a growing company.
"We are working with a group of guys with great experience," says Tennant. "We have a much higher quality of gear and personnel than any other local casino venue in town. Our guys are professional, they pay attention to detail and are, by far, the best house crew in Vegas."
