Entertainment

🥳 Huge parade | Hillbilly Hamlet | Hendo artfest | Foodie park | Night clowns | Beethoven drama | Dog rave

Andrew Kiraly

07 May 2025 — 6 min read

By the horns: Parades are like big messy civic buffets of sights, sounds, and people wearing jorts – and nobody does a buffet better than Las Vegas. This year's Helldorado Days Parade May 10 fills Fourth Street with high school marching bands, horses, motorcycles, themed floats, fire trucks, and, of course, the Shriner dudes in their tiny cars.

WITH A WATERLOGGED weekend behind us, I'm plunging into this week with full faith and credit afforded to good weather karma. Perfect timing, too: We've got grand downtown parades, south valley art festivals, park foodie blowouts, and so much more in the pipeline. Cheers! – Andrew Kiraly 🤍

🎟️ Congrats to Miranda A. for winning free tickets to The Fray May 16. Stay tuned for more giveaways!

Art Festival of Henderson

Paint the town at this two-day creative conclave.

May 10-11 ✦ Water Street

➤ Also: Get an earful of pop-powered eye candy with visiting artists Bryan Stewart and Quinn Carl at Second Saturday May 10 at Slonina ARTSpace ✦ Hella deals, steals, and scores in store at the Peddlers Parking Lot Sale May 10 on the south Strip ✦ Art on the green is the scene at Art in the Park May 10 at Rainbow Family Park ✦ The Beltane Fairy Festival May 10 at Fergusons Downtown should put a spell on you ✦ Uncover UnCommon treasures at this kickoff summer Night Market May 10 ✦ It's no Type O: Find bloody good deals and sideshow squeals at Cemetery Pulp's Summer Slasher Night Market May 10.▼

Great American Foodie Fest

Eat birria street tacos, ride the Ferris wheel, but not in that order.

May 9-11 ✦ Desert Breeze

➤ Also: This floral Mother's Day Luncheon May 8 at Floyd Lamb Park adds petal power to the holiday ✦ Velveteen Rabbit May 8 marks 12 hoppy years with flash tats, tarot, and a bloom bar ✦ Ever dog has his rave at Electric Corgi Carnival May 9 at Barkin Basin Dog Park ✦ Mom gets lei-ered in island love at this Mother's Day edition of Holoholo Market May 10 at Fergusons Downtown ✦ Sin City becomes Vin City as corks pop at Wine Spectator's Grand Tour May 10 at Wynn Las Vegas.▼

Hamlet

Shakespeare gets Southern-fried in this honky-tonk bard-aptation.

May 8-11 ✦ Cornerstone Park

➤ Also: Laugh 'til it hurts at the probing humor of alien comic Juno Birch May 7 at Wiseguys Town Square ✦ Cheer for your favorite "hood rat chic" strutter at the Miss and Mrs. Commercial Center Pageant May 8 at Badlands ✦ Glow up with Joshua Tree's Wonka-style psych-songstress Jesika Von Rabbit May 8 at Red Dwarf ✦ Lacy meets racy at Liquid Red's Adult Star Lingerie Party May 9 at The Lexi ✦ Punchline-drunk laughs reign at the second season of Comedy Rumble May 10 at Wiseguys Arts District ✦ Midnight mime mayhem erupts at red-shoe riot 1230 Clowns May 10 at Vegas Theatre Company ✦ The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper gets spiced up with creative choreography in Pepperland May 13 at Summerlin Library.▼

Beethoven's Seventh

Guest conductor Rei Hotoda swings the baton in Beeto's symphonic stirrer.

May 10 ✦ The Smith Center

➤ Also: Candlelight: Queen vs. ABBA May 8 pits dancing queens against bohemian rhapsodies at The Industrial ✦ Pink Pony Club May 9 brings Chappell Roan worship and sapphic pop paradise to The Usual Place ✦ LV garage-rockers The Implosions dust off a new album at Red Dwarf May 9 ✦ Jazz Underneath The Stars May 9 fills Centennial Hills with big band sounds and Naomi Mauro's vocals ✦ Shakedown After Dark May 10 offers double stages of late-night jamming at The Tuscany ✦ Great Northwest Country Fest May 10 serves up free BBQ, petting zoo and country stars at Lone Mountain ✦ Woody Woods Orchestra May 10 channels the Duke with 17 pieces of jazz royalty at West Las Vegas Arts Center.▼

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THE CH33SE 🧀

🍞 The Dish List

Sip the flavors of Italy's Sardinia region at Uncorked May 9 at Eataly ✦ Fulfill your knead for carb completion at Mastering the Art of Bread May 9 at Wynn Bread Bakery ✦ Bottomless mimosas and blooming bouquets are in season at this Mother's Day Brunch May 11 at Ellis Island ✦ Fruit-forward flavors are on tap at this Rombauer Vineyards Mother's Day Wine Tasting May 11 at The Rio ✦ Mother's Day Immersive Brunch May 11 surrounds Mom with wild visuals while she attacks her eggs Benedict at Illuminarium ✦ Smoke Wagon Bourbon Dinner May 13 rolls up for a spirited pairing at Gaetano's.

🛋️

Interiority complex: You've probably never met Roger Thomas, but if you've ever set foot inside a Wynn property – whether the Golden Nugget in 1980 or Wynn Las Vegas in 2025 – you've enjoyed his sumptuous interior spaces. He's been Wynn's dedicated in-house design expert for decades, but his roaring, rarefied maximalism has become synonymous with the idea of Las Vegas luxury. And to think he got his start designing the lobbies of ... banks? (Seriously, ask him.) He'll discuss his new book, Resort Style: Spaces of Celebration, May 10 at the Neon Museum.

🏬 Dearth Mall

The film Secret Mall Apartment May 7 at The Beverly Theater has a particularly relevant ring to it in a 21-century Las Vegas where stucco shoebox apartments chomp 70 percent of your income and single-family homes are financial instruments for offworld hedge funds ripplingly camouflaged beneath a thousand shell companies. The film is about a group of rad slackers who say eff this and secretly contrive an apartment in a Rhode Island mall and live there for four years. Which raises the question: Why couldn't a Boulevard or Meadows or Galleria snap off some dead storefronts for housing? I'm cool with how spots like UnCommons are catching the mixed-use wave, but what about a massive zoning retrofit?

📈 Growth Potential

You know what's up? Your soul is when you catch the natural highs on offer at these upcoming health, spirit, and wellness events: It's a spirit-raising spa day at The Mother of All Vibes May 10 at Fergusons Downtown, with bodywork zones, nutritious noshes, and new fitness tech tryouts ✦ Tap the tree of knowledge for herbal wisdom and natural cures at Roots to Remedies May 10 at World Gem Art ✦ Second Sunday May 11 at Africa Love salves psychic wounds through meditative workshops ✦ Rhythmic waves and soothing sonics calm moms at the Mother's Day Floating Sound Bath May 11 at Ainsley the Collective ✦ United heART May 18 recenters body and soul with yoga immersion, mandala-making, and satsang sound journeys. – curated by Niki Sligar

The 1230 Clowns are a group of fools committed to pleasing the theatre gods and the audience – even if it means being complete idiots for an hour. Directed by Riley Morlen. [ADVERTISEMENT]

Promote your brand on The List! We offer Supporting Sponsorships as well as display ads priced for small biz and indie creators. Hit me up at [email protected]. Not ready to splurge? Buy us a coffee to keep us perky! – AK

🚣‍♀️ Fresh Finds

It's a gold rush of Spanish rock royalty at Leyendas del Rock & Roll May 18 at the Silver Nugget ✦ Contemporary West Dance Theatre leaps into bold new works at its 2025 Spring Concert Series May 16-17 ✦ Paddle into the sunset with PBS personalities at the Outdoor Nevada in Real Life Sunset Kayaking Event May 17 ✦ Suck down a shot at every bitingly cringe moment during the Twilight Drink-A-Long May 23 at The Beverly Theater.

🤑 The Junk Drawer

I totally admit I'm an utter groveling flaccid simp for the breadth and convenience of Spotify but sometimes I do fantasize about cutting the stream ✦ Before there was Google, there was the library information line, which still exists in Alabama ✦ I'd rather quote the artist's statement, but only have room to quote the title: Mr. Beast Saying Increasingly Large Amounts of Money ✦ MAGA isn't the only new cult of the 21st century; beware the soft-skulled worshippers of AI.