This review is SOLELY BASED ON MY LAST VISIT TO FSE!!!!! It wasn't so many years ago that I wanted a cheap room in Vegas and the cheapest we could find was at the Cortez, right at the beginning of downtown's transformation into what would eventually become the Fremont Street Experience. This place was deserted. A ghost town. Unless you consider scaffolding a resident. The Irish pub was the only thing that had any life to it whatsoever. Fast forwards a few years later, and FSE became the beautiful not so hidden gem that it is today.
FSE holds a special place in my heart because I have gotten to see it being built into what it is today. I've been able to take my children with me on FSE to watch the many wonderful and talented street performers and the people dressed as characters working for tips, and it has always been a fun place to take a stroll in the evening, bouncing from eatery to eatery and bar to bar while zigzagging in and out of the casinos to play in between people watching and drinking.
Sadly, on this last visit, this past Marine Corps birthday weekend, I was unfortunately reminded that this was not the FSE I had grown to love. By no means am I a prude or sensitive to nudity of any kind, but I didn't like what I saw this time around. Before, there were plenty of handsome and beautiful men and women dressed like Spartans and showgirls and sexy Disney or fairytale creatures, super heroes and so on and so forth, but on this particular evening, the streets were full of women baring their breasts, nipples covered with electrical tape of all things, trying to get tipped just because their titties were showing.
Fat men, renting super hero costumes, trying to get tipped for being Superman and Spiderman with their beer bellies hanging out. Dude, I know men and women are beautiful in ALL shapes and sizes, but come on, look the part at least. What made me the saddest was that one of these women was older, and heavy and missing her teeth, and probably very much in need of money to either support a family or a habit, and there she was being made fun of just to earn a couple of dollars. Why? So that some drunk ass twenty something could get a good laugh and a pic and her an extra dollar?
I hope that whoever is in charge of the FSE can somehow regulate the quality and quantity of street performers and tip seekers there are out there, because its getting a little out of control. I can see FSE possibly going downhill from all this extra traffic. Some of these performers were actually a little pushy and seemed pissed that you didn't want your picture taken with them! I'd like to go back to the old days where I'd be able to walk down the streets of FSE with my lady and drink in hand, and enjoy the awesome bands performing on stage in peace and not be harassed by tip seeking caricatures of characters. PLEASE DO SOMETHING!