Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
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but not the entrance ("They are two different experiences, darling," he says gently), and at each table there are iPhone chargers. At 70,000 square feet it's much bigger than XS, and according to Drai, its $92 million bud- get is considerably higher. What you won't see there is a gaggle of celebrity DJs. Drai has never been a big fan of the Vegas DJ craze. In fact, although he arguably started it all by programming house music at Drai's After Hours when rap and Top 40 ruled local dance f loors, he seems repulsed by the idea of DJs eclipsing the club itself. "The problem with DJs is that the club doesn't even feel like a club a ny more. It feels more like a concer t ," he says. "Everybody got nervous and started outbidding each other, and now the clubs can't make money. Hakkasan makes $100 million a year gross and $15 million in profit. When I was at Wynn, we made 69 percent profit. A nd t he DJ scene is get t ing ver y bor ing. A s good a nd wonder f ul a s Calvin Harris is, you have him here every week. I believe that if you give them the most beautiful club they have ever seen, they will have an expe- rience with the club that is more important than the DJ. I'll pay $50,000 or $100,000, but I won't pay $400,000, which is what some of the others pay. I won't be controlled by the DJs." If Victor Drai understands anything, it's how to create things that peo- ple will pay to see and wear and experience. Now 66 years old, he was born in Morocco, spent his teenage years in Paris, and never worked for anybody other than himself. At age 21, he launched his own fashion line called Vicadam, famous for its velvet jeans. He's always had his priorities straight. "From the start, beautiful women were my goal; I knew I had to work hard to have pretty girls," Drai says, vacillating between a beer and a vanilla shake to go with his burger. "My goal in life was to be rich enough at 30 to do what I want and to have the most beautiful woman on my arm. That actually happened by the time I was 26." His plan exceeded expectations in 1974, when Drai met the movie star Jacqueline Bisset in t he f irst - cla ss sect ion of a t ra nscont inent a l f light. T hey quick ly beca me a n item; he ditched h is fa sh ion compa ny a nd moved with her to L A. Bisset liked the fact that Drai wasn't in the film business, so he stayed out of it. After they broke up, he began producing movies. His first release, The Woman in Red, came out in 1984 and fea- tured Kelly LeBrock, one of the most desirable actresses in Hollywood at the time. Drai married her the same year the film hit theaters. But by the time he produced the infamous Weekend at Bernie's, a dark comedy about a couple of goof balls pretending their dead boss is still alive, their rela- tionship was as lifeless as the title character. In 1993, three years after divorcing LeBrock and marrying 22-year-old Lor y n Lock lin, Dra i, at 45, fat hered h is f irst ch ild a nd wa nted more stability. So he opened the restaurant Drai's in LA. The place was a huge hit with the Holly wood crowd and Dominick Dunne's cent ral hangout spot for his Vanity Fair coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial. "There was a m i x of mov ie st a rs, st udio execut ives, a nd billiona ires," Dra i reca lls. "You couldn't get a table unless you knew me, and even then it was hard. One night we turned away Sean Connery. He was so hot about it that he didn't come back for two years." In 1998, Drai brought his restaurant and club concept to Vegas, set- t ing up shop in t he ba sement of t he old Ba rba r y Coa st , in a space t hat had prev iously housed t he world's la rgest McDona ld's. It m ight have been decrepit, but Drai loved the location: right on the corner of Flamingo and the Strip. In a town that was just beginning to get hip, Drai's after-hours spot was a smash. "If you didn't want to go to bed, you went to Drai's," he says. "Clooney, Paris Hilton, Leonardo DiCaprio—they were all there. And I never gave it away for free. I always made everybody pay." If they didn't want to, he adds, "they could find somebody else to pay, but not me. If t hey get pissed off a nd leave, I say, 'Leave.' They need t he place more than I need them." In 2004, when Steve Wynn was planning Wynn Las Vegas a nd st ill operat ing out of t he Deser t Inn, Dra i suggested setting up a nightclub inside the empty hotel building. "When you want to blow, you blow," he told Wy nn, refer r ing to t he building's impending implo - sion. "We'll shut it down." I nstead, Wy nn t r ied to t ap Dra i to r un L a Bete ( French for "t he beast"), t he club t hat would be in his new place. But negotiations faltered. Drai remembers insisting that the club had a lot of problems—and fearing that the casino mog ul would usu r p h is idea s. "T hey didn't t a ke my idea s. I predicted that they would die. And guess what happened." He waits a beat before braying, "They diiiied!" A month or so later, Drai received the call to come fix La Bete. "I said, 'I w ill t a ke over, but you k now my condit ion: I f I h it t he numbers, t hen you stay out of my hair. Also, the beast has to go.'" The beast? "Yes. There was a 90 -foot waterfall and lagoon that cost $10 million. Nobody can beat that. But in the middle of it was a giant eight-foot beast! It was terrible." The beast went. The club was renamed Tryst, and Drai got a 30 per- cent stake in the place, he says. "They dreamed of doing $6 million a year. The first year, I did $28 million, and $32 million the year after that. I saved the f- - -ing hotel!" W hen E ncore wa s in t he pla nning st ages, Dra i won t he bid to do another club there. This one turned out to be XS, Las Vegas's super-club of super-clubs. He found himself again owning Vegas nightlife from 11 PM until 8 in the morning. I tell Drai that it must have been a dream situa- t ion, pa r t icula rly for at t ract ing women. "It would have been a d rea m situation for some, but in my case it was the same as always," he says. "I get the girls anyway. Plus, I like being in relationships. [For] seven years, 10 years—I like my relationships." As seems to be the norm for Drai, his relationship with Wynn lasted eight years. "Steve was a great partner; we had the number-one club and " My goal was to be rich enough at 30 to do what I want and to have the most beautiful woman on my arm. That actually happened by age 26." 116 VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 114-117_V_FEAT_Drais_Spring14.indd 116 2/10/14 5:40 PM