Liberace Museum To Close

Left: Turkey feathers. A million turkey feathers!


This is a catastrophe! The Liberace Museum is one of the best-run pop culture museums in the entire world! It is a terrible thing to close it!

I visited the museum last year. I was very impressed at Liberace's vision. He loved to buy and own beautiful things, but he knew that beautiful things require diligent care to maintain (particularly keeping the dust off those costumes, and rebuilding them as old adhesives decayed with the years). So, Liberace set up his Foundation with a practically bomb-proof endowment and a steady stream of income from the nearby, leased stores, so that future generations of kids could love the same things he found so lovable - the costumes, the autos, the pianos, the statuary, etc. Where else in modern America do you find that kind of farsightedness; that kind of selflessness? On behalf of kids not even born?

Then there was the news the other day that Debbie Reynolds is going to have to sell her collection of Hollywood memorabilia.

The son of actress Debbie Reynolds says her big Hollywood memorabilia collection, including the red slippers from "The Wizard of Oz," is set to be auctioned by June.

Recessions are terrible things!:

One of Las Vegas' jewel attractions, and a significant part of its cultural and entertainment history, is closing.

The Liberace Museum, which has exhibited the jewelry, pianos, garish gowns and other artifacts owned by the great pianist and showman, announced today it will close effective Oct. 17. The museum opened April 15, 1979.

...Sagging visitation numbers, which have led to insufficient funding to meet the attraction's payroll and operating costs, are the stated reasons for shuttering the famous museum.

At its peak, the Liberace Museum rivaled Hoover Dam as one of the region's most popular off-Strip tourism destinations, drawing 450,000 visitors per year. That number is closer to 50,000 today, even with an aggressive marketing effort by the museum that has helped boost raw visitor numbers through such promotions as 2-for-1 ticket packages. But actual ticket revenue has not matched even modest gains in visits to the museum.

..."You know, there are a lot of people in the town in the years I've been associated with the board who say, 'Yeah, I'm aware of (the museum), I've never been there, it would be interesting to go there sometime,' and never make it there," Koep said. When it was noted that the museum had thrived at that very location for years, Koep said, "You bet, you bet, and in one sense there is more competition (from the Strip), and the other part that I find in this town — I don't know if other people do — if you live in the southeast, you really don't want to drive to Summerlin. If you live in Summerlin, not inclined to drive over to the southeast. Getting people who live in Las Vegas to the museum hasn't been easy.

"Our tourism numbers from the Strip have actually been pretty steady, but getting locals to turn out has been a challenge."

...The museum's profitability was further compromised because the museum and foundation owns the plaza on which the attraction and a number of businesses share space at the retail center. Several businesses have closed recently and have not been replaced, leaving the museum with a financial shortfall as landlords for that parcel (Carluccio's Tivoli Gardens, the restaurant once owned by Liberace, is independently owned and not affected by the museum's closing).

..."The plaza has not been completely rented out, and frankly it's not the most desirable rental space in the valley," Koep said. "But six years ago, before the market crashed, we were able, from our endowment funds, to pick up the losses of the museum and the plaza and keep Liberace's name alive through the museum. When the market crashed, our endowment fell, and with less people coming into the museum and buying things from the store, that money simply was not coming in."

The memorabilia that has been displayed at the museum will be stored and maintained by the Liberace Foundation Board of Directors, which is in final negotiations for a national tour of pieces of the attraction that might begin as soon as the summer of 2011. This tour would be similar to "Bodies" or "Titanic," with the artifacts displayed in a single city for a three- or four-month run.

...The foundation has awarded more than $6 million in financial aid to gifted music students since Liberace himself initiated the program in 1976.