A daring gamble at Luxor has failed to pay off.
“Particle Ink: House of Shattered Prisms,” described as a “75-minute theatrical adventure” will close following its final show on Oct. 28, 2024, per an internal document.
Ultimately, “Particle Ink” wasn’t a good fit for Luxor. And by that we mean “Particle Ink” wasn’t good. It opened at Luxor on April 20, 2024, or just six months ago. Awkward.
Here’s the document confirming the looming closure.
Big thanks to Johnny Kleptometes at the ethically-challenged Las Vegas Review-Journal for referencing this document without attribution, as is his way. We Tweeted the unconfirmed closure rumor at roughly the same time as Kleptometes, but shared the confirmation a few minutes later. Feuds are a lot more fun unresolved.
This is the part where we remind you we were the first to share the news “Particle Ink” was coming to Luxor in the first place.
We missed Particle Ink (“merging the worlds of art and technology with immersive virtual and augmented reality”) when it was downtown, but it got rave reviews. Hearing it will re-open at Luxor. https://t.co/8TG4Fv3Rb6
— Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) October 11, 2023
The show-slash-experience didn’t sound like our thing, but we decided to give it a try at Luxor and confirmed it wasn’t our thing.
“Particle Ink” is hard to describe, which is one of the obstacles the show wasn’t able to overcome.
It’s doubly hard to market a venue and experience if you don’t have the money to do marketing. The rumor is the show spent $10,000 to $15,000 a month on marketing. In Las Vegas, that amounts to the change you find under couch cushions.
“Particle Ink” took over a huge space at Luxor, across from the casino’s food court.
The show used live performances and high-tech projection mapping to create a unique, immersive, baffling, pointless waste of everyone’s time and money.
The “family-friendly” pole dancer was awesome, though.
The production felt like it was slapped together by a high school drama club, but without the creativity or enthusiasm.
Not everyone agrees with our opinions about “Particle Ink.” Our friend Jen Gay (Vegas Starfish) described it as “one of the coolest shoe experiences in Las Vegas.” We saw her and her family at the venue during our visit, so we know she saw the same thing we did. Our friends at the Ice Cream Social podcast raved about it as well. We told everyone it was terrible, but people don’t listen.
Polar opposite of our assessment (“absolutely terrible except for the bendy ladies”), @SweetMattyD of the @HeyScoops podcast enjoyed “Particle Ink” at Luxor. We agree it would be better suited to New York or Chicago, also probably appreciated more by folks with kids.…
— Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) August 8, 2024
The implosion of “Particle Ink” at Luxor may lead some to believe The Strip is no place for “art.” This isn’t a case of that. This was amateur hour and rent at Strip casinos isn’t cheap.
There’s still time to check out “Particle Ink” at Luxor, but why would you do that?
Spend your money on Play Playground, next door. Or Carrot Top. Or “Fantasy.” Or a chicken sandwich in the food court.
We hope “Particle Ink” finds a new, less expensive, home. Opening at Luxor was an undeniably bold move, one completely lacking self-awareness or even a particle of business sense, but bold.
We prefer our immersive, interactive experiences to feel fully formed (like Omega Mart at Area 15) rather than half-cocked.
“Particle Ink” wasn’t unappreciated art, it was like performing brain surgery while sitting on a washing machine during the spin cycle. An unfortunate mess.
