In the early days of the Las Vegas boom one hotel, more than any other, portrayed the glam and glitz that has become a Vegas hallmark—the Golden Nugget. As one of the oldest casinos in Vegas, it opened in 1946 with the distinction of being the largest casino in the world at that time. Its iconic brilliant gold exterior sign has been featured in multiple blockbuster films, including James Bond’s Diamonds Are Forever and Elvis Presley’s Viva Las Vegas. It also appeared prominently in the Bee Gees music video Night Fever.
Over the years, the Golden Nugget hotel has undergone numerous renovations to compete with the trendier hotels on the Strip and draw people back to the downtown area and excitement of Fremont Street. Especially noteworthy is the hotel’s award-winning pool. With a price tag of $30 million, this stunning engineering feat features a 200,000-gallon shark tank with live sharks and other exotic fish. A large water slide passes right through the shark tank to the amazement of hotel guests and visitors. Also of interest at the Golden Nugget is that, true to its namesake, it houses in its lobby one of the largest golden nuggets ever discovered.
Today, with its four distinctive towers and 2,400 rooms and luxury suites, the Golden Nugget showcases iconic Vegas ambience with a modern, energetic feel. Key to its vibrant look and feel is its brilliant sign that features more than 50,000 light bulbs that illuminate the night sky with the Golden Nugget name. To keep that many lights shining brightly requires one heck of an electric bill, not to mention lots of hours in labor to keep the fixtures maintained.
Greater Savings with Less Maintenance
Thanks, however, to a recent upgrade (completed in October 2023) that helped to transform the hotel’s Barbary Coast-style appearance into a sleek modern casino, the Golden Nugget hotel is now saving more than 400,000 watts and significant man hours. Yet, its sign still shines brightly—perhaps even brighter than before thanks to new lamps that create brighter, easier-to-maintain, more energy-efficient lighting.
This wasn’t that difficult of a feat when considering that the original fixtures on the exterior of the hotel were simply E12 Candelabra sockets embedded into the building façade marquee. Between every gold diamond on the building there was a small globe lamp with original incandescent lamps that consumed 10W at 120V each.
Knowing that there were more efficient lighting options today, the Golden Nugget reached out to distributor Tyrone Thompson, owner of Las Vegas Lighting, who contacted Alive Enterprises for a solution. The hotel presented its list of problems and asked for a smart lighting solution. Fortunately, David Alayev, President of Alive Enterprises Inc., was one of the original people who worked on the property more than 25 years ago, so his familiarity with the project facilitated his ability to work with various lighting manufacturers to find a solution.
Building Settling Complicated Project
Alayev said, “The existing lights had a horrible life span. We even discovered that, over the years, the building façade had settled and in certain places the lamps were almost impossible to access and replace. The space was so small it would only allow your hand to get in with no space for tools to remove the old lamp.”
In order to solve the problem, Alayev turned to Tivoli Lighting to help find a solution. Both Alayev and Tivoli realized they needed a longer-performing lamp that would provide the same incandescent filament appearance but in a smaller size to accommodate the tiny spaces. In addition, the new lamp had to provide a viable solution for the potential water ingression to further extend performance life.
After a thorough review of project needs and evaluation of currently available options, Tivoli Lighting determined that a new product design was necessary, so it developed the Tivolite Filament G10 lamp with a double filament and a 30,000-hour life span. When one filament side goes out, the other stays lit. The IP65-rated bulb for wet locations has a genuine glass vacuum sealed bulb with a nickel-coated brass base to eliminate corrosion due to weather conditions.
“The Tivolite Filament bulb is environmentally friendly with zero UV emissions. The 2200K lamp only consumes 1 watt, saving 85 to 90 percent energy as a direct replacement for the incandescent lamps,” said Alayev. “No other manufacturer has been able to tackle this issue and provide a viable solution. Tivoli created the lamp, as per our specific requirements for the application and, through the process, was able to develop a viable product line of Tivolite bulbs to fit any application.”
In total, 47,000 small G10 lamps and 4,300 S14 lamps were replaced.
“The end result is stunningly beautiful warm light which brought life back to the building, the building’s contours, and the famous Golden Nugget sign. All the coves and outlines of the building are now finally lit, allowing this Las Vegas icon to sparkle brighter every day,” said Alayev.
In order to provide the hotel with even greater savings, NV Energy provided a rebate for swapping the original incandescent lamps with the new LED technology.
Participants
Installer – The awesome Golden Nugget Engineering Dept Team
Customer – Golden Nugget Las Vegas
Specifier – Alive Enterprises Inc.
Energy Supplier – NV Energy
Distributor – Las Vegas Lighting
Manufacturer – Tivoli Lighting
For more information about Tivoli Lighting, visit https://tivolilighting.com, or call Tivoli Lighting at (714) 957-6101.
