White Castle fans flock to Foodie Fest

Forty minutes before the gates opened at the recent Las Vegas Foodie Fest, a line stretched for miles outside the Silverton’s parking lot, with most of the people waiting for White Castle. When the gates finally opened at noon, attendees sprinted across the fest to get in line at the slider joint, just to wait again.

Those little sliders from back East that you just can’t get fresh out West made a splash in Vegas at the end of April, drawing crowds that one customer likened to a scene from “The Hunger Games.” People waited in 100-degree heat for anywhere from 90 minutes to five hours to get the burgers.

But the long lines took their toll. One woman collapsed with heat exhaustion and had to be wheeled away. The White Castle cashier said she was bewildered at the popularity and said she’d never seen anything like the pandemonium.

Most of the hungry people waiting under the blistering sun came to buy $30 Crave Cases, and few walked out with fewer than 30 burgers apiece.

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Let’s face it, it’s easy to pass the buck to the media, especially when you’re under fire in a very public way.

Stephen O’Grady did just that when he recently presented to a group of law enforcement officials at the 20th annual Tourism Safety Conference in Las Vegas. During his session O’Grady talked about managing threats to famous clients, which he does via his logistics business, ED Services. He made some assertions during his talk that seemed to annoy more than a few of the audience members.

Then, he cited incorrect statistics about the 1980 MGM fire, which in turn irritated even more audience members. In an ultrawimpy move, O’Grady quickly passed the buck to a news article he read that supposedly contained the incorrect statistics.

“I’m shocked the media got something wrong,” he said.

After doing a little research, though, it seems as if O’Grady simply went to Wikipedia for his research. With the countless articles written on the fire and its aftermath, it’s actually hard to get stats wrong on that one, O’Grady.

But I guess if you knew anything about the research it takes to get a story, you’d know that.

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Local magic man Seth Grabel is at it again.

With this project, though, Grabel’s working behind the scenes. He recently started a new site, vegasperformers.com, to help local entertainers market themselves to people looking to hire them for events and conventions.

While the idea isn’t novel, that Grabel could get the vegasperformers.com domain is. Who knew that would still be available?

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One of the world’s leading visitor guides now includes Las Vegas, which in and of itself, is something.

Fodor’s free City Guides application recently added our fair city, bringing the app’s total destination count to 21. App users can now access expertly vetted recommendations for the most popular cities worldwide, and interactive maps, hotel and restaurant reservations, tour discounts and ticket booking.

Color the local tourism industry happy.

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