Sarah Feldberg
The convention space at the Venetian, Palazzo and Sands Expo Center has everything you'd expect from a major meetings destination: massive halls and intimate ballrooms, catering services, high-speed connectivity, audio-visual assistance and full business centers. However, one increasingly popular element has been missing from that mix: a place for individuals to "park, plug in and get some work done."
That's how Venetian Palazzo chief marketing officer Lisa Marchese describes the new 1,170-square-foot co-working lounge inside the resorts' Congress Center.
Created in conjunction with Las Vegas-based shoe giant Zappos, the pop-up lounge is a transaction-free, first-come, first-serve workplace where hotel or convention guests can take a break to check email or charge their phones. Fishbowl-style glass walls make the space feel open and welcoming, and instead of cubicles and desks, the furnishings are by Restoration Hardware, with lounge chairs and high counters for communal seating.
"It feels residential in its execution," Marchese said. "I think it's warm and inviting, and that was an intentional choice."
There are also the necessities: free WiFi, lots of outlets, four small cubes that you can close to make or take a phone call and a six-person conference room that teams can rent for an hour a day. Zappos staffs the venue, putting its famed customer-service spin on the space and helping people understand how to utilize it.
Before the lounge debuted on Jan. 2, Marchese said visitors were "finding any place they could" to take a timeout between meetings, "whether they were standing against a wall or in Cafe Presse," the coffee shop in the resort's Grand Canal Shoppes.
Indeed, conventioneers sitting on the floor next to some unclaimed outlet with their laptops and phones is a common sight in Las Vegas. While the city drew 6.3 million business travelers in 2016, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, beyond the walls of convention halls there are few spaces set up to facilitate work.
"Having a place where you're not buying something, you're not eating, you're just there to plug in and work, it's a nice break from every other moment of the day," Marchese said.
That idea is especially refreshing inside a casino, but how it will catch on among Vegas visitors remains to be seen. The resort is tracking usage of the pop-up to gauge interest and adjust scheduling, but the early numbers are promising.
"We were interested to see how people reacted to it," Marchese said. "We saw hundreds use this space over CES."
The co-working lounge is open daily from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on a first-come, first-serve basis.