Venetian Macao is coming along and a big PR push is scheduled for its July opening. Anyone who’s visited the Vegas version will find the property’s look very familiar indeed.

I don’t love the night life. Or so I discovered during a weekend visit to Empire Ballroom. Oh, they rolled out the red carpet, treating the Significant Other and myself like royalty, rather than like the inked-stained wretches we are. But if I was ever young enough to start partying at 2 a.m. and continue to five in the morning, those days have long passed.

Not so for hundreds of others, who were having a good time (not the same thing as dancing well — a skill almost entirely absent from the dance floor that night). Empire has a strict no-drugs policy, though I’d swear that a few partygoers got around that by getting stoned in advance, judging from their lack of visible motor-coordination skills.

Call me an old fogey but the whole experience still has me feeling discombobulated. The hospitality was lovely but, as far as repeating the experience, I have two words: Never again.

Fallout at Wynn: Quick off the mark, the Las Vegas Sun already has not one, but two stories on the Transport Workers’ move on Wynn Las Vegas. Given the TWU’s lack of success in previous efforts, I’m guardedly pessimistic at this point … although Wynn Resorts’ chances would improve exponentially if Steve Wynn and right-hand man Andrew Pascal were to remove themselves to a Trappist monastery until after the vote. They seem to have a knack for exacerbating tensions. Then again, if Wynn dealers are having to fork over as much as Simpson says they are, that may be all the motivation they need.

In Atlantic City, however, where the more-potent UAW has been flexing its muscles, pro-union moment among dealers appears all but unstoppable … at least in casinos owned by Harrah’s or Trump. Given the working conditions described in the Philadelphia Inquirer article, I can’t say I’m surprised. Were somebody to throw a Wynn-like tip-confiscation plan into this climate, it would be like kerosene + lighted match.

Get those Producers tickets, quick! Harrah’s has announced the imminent departure of David Hasselhoff from its downsized version of The Producers, effective May 7. The Hoff cites pressing duties elsewhere, as a judge on America’s Got Talent (ya think?), depriving Paris Las Vegas of the one "draw" its show has going for it. Then again, it can’t be fun to play night after night in front audiences that are running at, a source says, 30% of capacity or less.

After witnessing a Wynn Las Vegas version of Spamalot that is very nearly a clone of the Broadway original (certainly not to be discerned from the parent without close scrutiny), it reinforces what a miserably cramped experience the Vegas-ized Producers was. For better or worse, The Hoff is plays a disproprtionately large role in whatever success the show enjoys. Without him, I give it until Memorial Day.

I keep putting off posting my Spamalot impressions (more out of laziness than anything else), but Steve Wynn went the full measure and got it right. You certainly feel like you’ve seen a show, not had the attenuated, neither-fish-nor-fowl creation that was Th Prdcrs (as it should have been billed). I still think Mandalay Bay’s Mamma Mia! is the best conventional show on the Strip, but Spamalot runs it a surprisingly close second.

Scintas, RIP: Scintamania appears to be yesterday’s news (but not before one local journo got to be a Scinta for a night). Their Sahara show goes dark on May 12, meaning — if nothing else — there’s one less craptastic Jerry Lewis impersonation out there. The Las Vegas Advisor pegs the closing of the show on Sam Nazarian’s impending purchase of the old hotel-casino but I disagree: The Nazarian transaction could be months away (or never, if there’s a hitch in the financing), pending the regulatory process. The recent — and steep -cuts in Scintas’ ticket prices boded ill and, until recently, their TV-ad presence had been nonexistent since leaving The Rio. By the time the Sahara waded in with some big ad buys, it was probably too late. Don’t worry; the family act will probably crop up somewhere else in town before long. I hear there’s room at Fitzgeralds …

(I do agree with LVA that the shutdown of "The Amazing Johnathan," probably after the New Year’s weekend, is likely tied to the change of ownership at the Sahara. In terms of timing, it is much nearer to when the Nazarian deal will probably close. All signs point to a rethinking of the entertainment product at the North Strip joint.)

Things could be worse. In a day marked by senseless violence, here’s a little — if entirely unrelated — bit of good news. Bally Technologies got a contract extension from the New York Lottery, and is also benefiting from the gradual expansion of casino/racino gambling in the Empire State, closing the day at $23.26. This certainly won’t hamper Bally execs when they make the argument that they’ve finally got the company headed in the right direction.

It was a similar story for Isle of Capri Casinos, which was up almost 3% after announcing a new brand, to be introduced at its Pompano Park racino. Called "the isle" (yeah, the all-small caps affectation is as pretentious as heck), it’s also slated for Isle’s Waterloo, IA, and Coventry casinos. The latter is being created in the — I’m not making this up, you know — basement of Coventry Ricoh Arena. I have no idea what it will sound like down there when a soccer match is in progress, but the planned, 70-foot waterfall will probably have to work overtime.