Confirmed: Tiesto Set for Fontainebleau Residency

By Scott Roeben, on January 04 2024
2 min read 7 comments
Las Vegas Nightclubs

We ruin lots of surprises in Las Vegas. As the kids say, sorry, not sorry.

As we shared exclusively back in April 2023, superstar DJ Tiesto will have a residency at Fontainebleau Las Vegas, the newest casino resort to open on the Las Vegas Strip.

There’s a lot of drama around this announcement, exactly zero of which you’ll get from other sources. You’re welcome.

Real men don’t need plastic buckets on their head.

As we shared in our original story, Tiesto’s defection from Resorts World’s Zouk Nightclub flew largely under the radar, but was part of a major nightlife shake-up at the struggling resort.

The internal messiness included the departure of several key nightlife executives, including Michael Waltman, Vice President of Zouk Group, and Andrew Pacheco, Executive Director of Customer Development of Zouk Group.

Here’s Tiesto taking various means of transportation to LIV nightclub at Fontainebleau.

Big thanks to LIV for mentioning us in their Tiesto announcement! (The Tweet starts with “The rumors are true.”)

Another DJ we’ve reported has parted ways with Resorts World for a more lucrative deal with Fontainebleau is Zedd. Announcement pending.

We are not a nightclub person, mostly because most Las Vegas clubs have dress codes prohibiting mom jeans, but these are big moves, so you know we’re going to ruin as many surprises as possible.

Tiesto joins an exciting line-up at LIV, featuring a metric hell-ton of entertainers we also know virtually nothing about. You’ll want to hit “mute” before you click on the link to the official LIV site. (Auto-on audio is a huge no-no in Web site design.)

Or visit the blissfully quiet official Tiesto site.

We haven’t had time to do a story about the opening of Fontainebleau, but it’s awesome despite being doomed. We’re trying to be more positive in 2024, so we aren’t going to get into the oncoming layoffs, executive firings or debt write-downs.

Let’s just say Tiesto’s move to Fontainebleau has some risk attached. Just ask Marshmello and Kaskade about their experience with Kaos at Palms. The former owner of Palms (Station Casinos) signed Marshmello to a $60 million deal, but canceled the residency when profits proved elusive. He reportedly got a $36 million buyout for the inconvenience. Kaskade sued Station Casinos and got nearly $8 million to settle the case.

A Kaos documentary is expected to air sometime before 2069. The producers are reasonably concerned about a potential legal kerfuffle, so there’s a lot of fact-checking involved.

Tiesto, wisely, isn’t putting all his eggs in one basket. His deal with Fontainebleau isn’t exclusive. He’ll also be doing his button-pushing at Omnia at Caesars Palace, Tao Beach at Venetian and Wet Republic at MGM Grand.

Fontainebleau and LIV (pronounced like “you only live once”) are untested in Las Vegas, and we suspect the deal with Tiesto is generous. LIV is popular at the Fontainebleau in Miami, but as we’ve seen so often, brands that work elsewhere aren’t guaranteed success in Las Vegas. See also SLS (owned by SBE, a hospitality and nightlife brand, before the casino tanked).

Fontainebleau has relied heavily on the reputation of its Miami hotel (as opposed to effective marketing, advertising, social marketing or public relations), and we trust that will also be the case with LIV.

Anticipate more drama to come, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.