Vegas acts take to airwaves at McCarran airport

Have you been to McCarran recently? If so, did you happen to notice Wayne Newton offering pleasantries to passengers getting on and off planes in both terminals?

That’s been happening, apparently, for the past few weeks. I didn’t notice it last week when I was at the airport. But then again, I’ve been known to panic about misplacing my phone while I’m holding it in my hand, so take that for what it’s worth.

Evidently, the folks at the airport have hired Mr. Las Vegas to greet folks with a warm, hearty hello. Pretty cool, huh?

What’s that? Oh, yeah, no, sorry, probably should have mentioned that — he’s not in person. My bad. Here I am making it sound like he’s a department store greeter or something. No, Newton, whose name is synonymous with Las Vegas, has been enlisted by the airport to lend his voice to its new Voices of Vegas campaign.

“Hi, this is Wayne Newton and welcome to McCarran International Airport,” Newton says before a snippet of “Danke Schoen,” his signature tune, plays in between a rotation of Vegas-centric songs. “You’re listening to some of my favorite hits on Voices of Vegas.”

Wayne freaking Newton, everybody! I mean, if you want to highlight the music in this town, it doesn’t get any more Las Vegas than that! Well, that is, unless you’re talking about Imagine Dragons. Those guys have been tapped to take part, too, I’ve been told. In fact, if you listen closely the next time you’re waiting to catch a flight, you just might hear the voices of Dan Reynolds or Ben McKee, who had some fun with the promos and recorded some of McCarran’s most amusing greetings thus far.

First there’s Dan’s. Take it away, Dan:

“Hey, this is Dan Reynolds from the band Imagine Dragons. I was born, went to school and started our band right here in Las Vegas, Nevada. I went on to be a ginormous rock star/male model/motocross professional. What have you done with your life? Enjoy your time here.”

Not to be outdone by his bandmate, Ben brings his own brand of humor:

“Attention, this is your captain speaking, captain Ben McKee of Imagine Dragons, and you are on your one-way cruise into Pleasure Town, aka Las Vegas. As you’re going through your TSA pat-down, remember: Everything that happens in Vegas, I will find out about and I will broadcast it here. Enjoy your day.”

According to Chris Jones, McCarran’s chief marketing officer, the purpose of the Voices of Vegas programming is to promote and celebrate the music and musicians of Las Vegas. But it’s not just the homegrown musicians. While you’ll hear the music of the Dragons and The Killers, you’ll also hear programming blocks of music featuring everyone from Elvis and the Rat Pack to Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez. The idea, Jones says, is to bring the “Vegas experience,” as he puts it, into the airport.

“About 80 percent of our traffic is people who are coming here from somewhere else, and we like the idea of giving a good first impression, a good last impression,” Jones explains. “And, among many different thoughts, one was let’s bring in the music of Las Vegas, so that when you get off the plane, you know, you’re hearing Britney Spears, and maybe you’re flying here to see Britney Spears and that’s kind of just a cool little coincidence — or maybe not so much a coincidence — to get off the plane and, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s great!’

“So that was really the genesis behind it. The execution of it became a little more tricky than I think we anticipated it would be. We previously had Muzak as our music provider, but Muzak is limited in terms of what you can program. You can pick a particular genre, you can pick multiple genres or whatever, but there was no real ability to go in and say, ‘OK, I want R&B, but I only want Ne-Yo,’ or ‘I want R&B, and I only want Prince.’ So what we did we set out and settled on a company that’s called PlayNetwork, and PlayNetwork has the ability that you can program essentially whatever you want. So I met with them, multiple conversations over the telephone, and what we did was we created a program that ultimately became Voices of Vegas.”

So far, along with Newton and Imagine Dragons, the airport’s program also includes Donnie and Marie Osmond and Britney Spears, with more likely to follow.

In the meantime, Jones and company also have been making an effort to develop a live component. Though this part of the program is still being pulled together, last fall during El Grito, the airport recruited students from Rancho High School’s mariachi program to perform in the international arrivals area for passengers arriving from Mexico. During the holiday season, elementary students from local schools sang Christmas and Hanukkah songs in the terminal during the lighting ceremony.

The aim is to expose travelers to the idea that Vegas is more than just the Strip, Jones says: “It’s not just what you see in the hotels or on Las Vegas Boulevard, but we have communities and culture here.”

Indeed we do. Not to mention a terrific music scene. While it is probably premature to press for this at this point: Here’s hoping that as the Voices of Vegas programming progresses it one day expands to the point that you hear the acts from our local scene playing in the airport. How cool would that be?

There are hundreds of potential playlist additions: Bee Master, Rayner, Moonboots, Hassan, Black Camaro, Rusty Maples, Leaving Springfield, Daniel Park, the Lique, the Astaires, Mercy Music, Same Sex Mary, the Quitters, Negative Nancys … I could go on and on. The options are essentially endless.

Now that would be killer! I mean, imagine the possibilities.

Read more from Dave Herrera at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at dherrera@reviewjournal.com and follow @rjmusicdh on Twitter.