Bellagio Conservatory Pitches Wu to Asian Customers With Chinese New Year Display

By Scott Roeben, on January 25 2016
3 min read 4 comments
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The Conservatory & Botanical Garden at Bellagio Las Vegas is once again beckoning Asian visitors (translation: gamblers) with its Chinese New Year’s display.

Bellagio Conservatory Chinese New Year
Let the cavalcade of pinnable photos begin!

The Conservatory’s elaborate display features a range of symbols of significance to Asian cultures, including monkeys since 2016 is the Year of the Monkey in the Chinese zodiac.

Bellagio Chinese New Year
Monkeys are one of the five major animal styles used in Chinese martial arts. The others are Tiger, Crane, Leopard and Panda.

Much of this year’s Chinese New Year display will be familiar to Las Vegas regulars, but Bellagio always makes sure to add new elements to keep things interesting. And, of course, there are always thousands of fresh flowers.

Well, they couldn't very well call it a Botanical Garden without some botanicals, could they?
They couldn’t very well call it a Botanical Garden without some botanicals, could they?

We haven’t seen the annual Chinese New Year display news release this year, so we’re winging it on the Conservatory & Botanical Garden factoids.

The costumes of the children in the display are made up of about 1,800 flowers.

Bellagio Chinese New Year
Worst. Goalkeeper. Ever.

It’s adorable that children appear in the Bellagio display, because the Chinese New Year actually began with a mystical creature called Nian that would devour villagers, especially children.

The legend says Nian was afraid of the color red, which explains why celebrants hang red lanterns, use red firecrackers and wear red clothing during Chinese New Year festivities. Red represents virtue, truth and sincerity.

Bellagio Chinese lanterns
Red is also the color Wesley Snipes advised not bet on in “Passenger 57.”

Chinese New Year goes by a number of names, including New Year Festival, Lunar New Year and Spring Festival.

The Chinese New Year display features lots of the aforementioned Chinese lanterns, Ding pots and a metric ass-ton of peaches. Peaches, it turns out, are a symbol of wealth, abundance and a long, healthy life.

There are also a lot of lucky coins, several hundred of which form a lucky coin tree.

Bellagio Conservatory Las Vegas
Round coins with a square hole were first introduced in China around 350 B.C., at approximately the same time as bad driving.

There’s even a koi pond. Koi are more sort of a Japanese thing than a Chinese thing, but let’s not get bogged down in details.

Bellagio Chinese New Year
Koi played a major role in a recent kabuki production on the hotel’s Lake Bellagio. Check it out.

The Bellagio Conservatory remains one of the most stunning free attractions in Las Vegas. While most of the displays reflect a season (spring, summer, fall and winter), the Chinese New Year display is specifically intended to woo Asian visitors.

Chinese players have long been a lucrative source of revenue for Las Vegas casinos. They also have some of the most interesting gambling superstitions, including the belief one should never have sex before hitting the casino. See more fascinating Chinese superstitions.

Bellagio Chinese New Year
We are especially fond of the streams of water that leap from one part of the display to another. Yes, we are capable of whimsy, thank you.

The Chinese New Year display at Bellagio runs through March 12, 2016. The spring display runs from March 18 to May 14, 2016.

The actual Chinese New Year is celebrated Feb. 8, 2016.

Bellagio Conservatory Chinese bridge
Fortune cookie say: Fortune cookies are Japanese, not Chinese.

See more things to do in Las Vegas in our seemingly boundless archive of such things.

Bellagio Conservatory flowers
Imagine all the bees doing the walk of shame after pollinating the 140,000 flowers used in Bellagio’s Chinese New Year exhibit.

Enjoy more photos of the Chinese New year display at Bellagio’s Conservatory & Botanical Garden, several of which are close to actually being in focus.

Bellagio Chinese New Year 2016