Matt Goss set to return to the Strip at The Mirage

It’s tempting to say the return of Matt Goss to the Strip is no mirage, but his host hotel quashes that pun.

Goss is indeed expected back on the Strip this year, heading to The Mirage and its 1Oak nightclub for an extended residency. Word of Goss’ booking seeped out on the Bandisintown ticket website and application, which has listed at least 21 dates for Goss at 1Oak beginning Sept. 29 and running through mid-December.

That Sept. 29 date makes sense because it is also Goss’s birthday. But it doesn’t make sense because the room is undergoing renovations to allow for Goss’ live show, and the overhaul is likely to last through early October. Tickets are not yet on sale; the website has merely posted a collection of prospective upcoming dates for Goss at 1Oak.

Goss has offered no comment on this upcoming extended engagement. MGM Resorts is expected to make a formal announcement about Goss at 1Oak in the next several days. The venue will continue to serve as a nightclub — it is among the Hakkasan Group’s collection of clubs on the Strip — and is to be used as a multipurpose facility.

Until then, an educated estimation of the earliest date for Goss’ launch is closer to mid-October. Expect him to headline a schedule similar to the weekend dates he played while headlining the Gossy Room (now Cleopatra’s Barge) at Caesars Palace for 6 ½ years.

Goss has not performed a ticketed show in Las Vegas since closing at Caesars Palace last September. Reportedly, he has since been in serious talks with officials at Venetian/Palazzo and Caesars Entertainment before landing at The Mirage, which is conveniently just next door to the north of Caesars Palace.

Goss’ most recent appearance onstage in town was to sing “Unforgettable” at Jerry Lewis’s memorial service at South Point Showroom on Labor Day. He recently reunited with his twin brother, Luke Goss, in the late-1980s British boy band Bros for shows at London’s 02 Arena on Aug. 19-20.

The duo also will play a single show Nov. 4 at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia. Goss is back at 02 for five holiday shows Dec. 18-22.

His previous productions, first at The Lounge at the Palms in September 2009 and later at Caesars have been fiery affairs. The fedora-sporting Goss has been backed by a a cracking seven-piece band (highlighted by the three-piece Gossy Horns), a pair of sultry backing singers and the Dirty Virgins dance troupe. A return to that scene is long overdue.

All our skaters

“Absinthe” sibling sensations Billy and Emily England’s spirited run in “America’s Got Talent” reminded of their famed counterparts on the Strip.

We speak of the Skating Aratas at “V: The Ultimate Variety Show” at V Theater at Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood.

The Aratas were long known in Vegas as the husband-and-wife team of Victor and Jenny Arata, the original skating act in “Absinthe” when the production opened in April 2011. They left the show at the end of the show’s original, six-month contract to join David Saxe Productions.

Two years ago, Jenny Arata retired from the stage. Stepping in, or rolling in, was Argentinian artist Ashelen Magrini, who has been a pro skater since age 6 and has appeared in commercials for Lee jeans, Bud Light, L’Oreal (all separately) while performing onstage. The act still performs under its original name, Skating Aratas.

The two skating teams are also related in fact, as Victor Arata is the brother of Billy and Emily, and was Emily’s original partner before teaming with Jenny. Billy and Emily eventually formed their own stage partnership, and after a series of three skating acts came and went in “Absinthe,” Billy and Emily joined the show in 2015.

Over the past several years, the demand for top-notch skating acts has ballooned across the country, through the notoriety achieved by these respective artists. Victor Arata says he and Magrini perform up to 60 corporate dates per year, outside their full-time schedule with the “V” show. Victor said “AGT” offered all of its contestants, including Billy and Emily, “great exposure,” and that he and Jenny have often considered wheeling into the competition.

“We just could never find the time,” he said. “We are so damn busy.”

What works in Vegas

Axis at Planet Hollywood theater headliners the Backstreet Boys, who regularly fill that venue and also burn it up on the road. This week BSB sold out their Oct. 21 show at the 55,000-seat National Stadium in Singapore in two hours … Bubble-gum and candy cigarettes at Chumlee’s Candy on the Blvd. told me Saturday afternoon that those sugary, cigarette-styled confections have out-sold all other candy “by a lot” at the business at Pawn Plaza.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.