Caesars Palace Bets on Love with
Celine Dion Show

LOS ANGELES, CA - The world's biggest gambling house is betting big on love.

Celine Dion, the chart-breaking French-Canadian romantic chanteuse, will launch a three-year exclusive engagement in Las Vegas on Tuesday, March 25th, in the $95 million Caesars Palace Colosseum theater, newly built by Park Place Entertainment Corp., the world's largest casino operator.

Dion is expected to make about $100 million over three years from the show, with tickets averaging $125 each.

Dion, who has won fans worldwide with hits like "My Heart Will Go On," the theme of the movie "Titanic", will sing and even fly above the crowd in a show called "A New Day..." The production is by Franco Dragone, designer of the lavish theatrical Cirque du Soleil shows, who has created a moving "painting" on a huge high-definition video screen and assembled a cast of some 60 dancers, singers and musicians.

Caesars, a former entertainment giant, is in the midst of a a planned renaissance. In the works along with the Colosseum are a Roman plaza of restaurants, a Forum mall addition, a parking garage and potentially a new $350 million hotel tower.

For the renaissance to pay off, 800,000 to 1 million people a year must follow Dion into Caesars and then indulge in a Roman orgy of eating and gambling, since the casino gets hardly any of the ticket proceeds, executives have said.

The diva is also releasing a new album, "One Heart," on March 25th. Show organizers fearlessly predict success, pointing to the popularity of Dion and the wave of high-end entertainment sweeping the gambling capital.

"It is to me as paramount in this town as Elvis going to the Hilton," said promoter John Meglen, co-chief executive of Concerts West, which is ponying up an estimated $40 million to create the show.

If Elvis Presley was the king of rock and roll, Dion is arguably the queen of pop, with more than 150 million albums sold -- more than any other woman. The partners are confident she can fill the 4,100-seat theater five nights a week through 2006.

NO PARTY, BUT SHOW GOES ON

The U.S.-led war on Iraq has dampened the planned festivities. Organizers have canceled a post-premiere party, and a ceremony for Dion to receive a star on Hollywood Boulevard was postponed. CBS still plans to show a Dion special linked to the show on Tuesday evening but may pre-empt it with war news.

But tickets are nearly sold out for the first three months of the show, which will be be presented 200 nights a year, Meglen says.

He says there is plenty of demand for entertainment. Two-thirds of the 35 million tourists who went to Las Vegas last year took in a show, up from 40 percent in 1998, the local visitors bureau says, and most of the visitors came more than once last year.

Dragone has already created two shows, "Mystere" and "O," featuring acrobats from the artsy Cirque du Soleil. He was initially afraid the second show would drain

audiences away from the first, but they reinforced each other and still sell out, years into the run.

He describes a "three-dimensional show" of Dion, dancers and the "tableau" of the video screen.

"We try not to do a magical effect, an illusion effect, but a poetic effect," he said in an interview. "The main ingredient is Celine."

CIRCUS NOT PROVIDING CAESARS' BREAD

Caesars, though, will only make money if spectators stick around for the food and gambling. "We have carefully developed a host of new attractions that will ensure that the people who come to see Celine will stay in our rooms, dine in our restaurants, shop in our mall," Caesars Palace President Mark Juliano said in
a statement.

If 1 million people per year spend an extra $50 each, then Park Place can make the roughly 20 percent return on investment it aims for, officials have said.

That goal is "challenging but not impossible" and depends largely on how Caesars fills the Colosseum on the nights Dion does not perform, said Deutsche Bank analyst Marc Falcone.

"In order to be more competitive with other leading Strip properties, Caesars needed to add a major entertainment attraction," he said.

Dragone, who has spent 2-1/2 years designing the show, said he has already wondered about a follow-up if Dion quits after three years, but he has not yet been asked.

"Everybody is waiting to see if the show is good or not," he said.