Be afraid, be VERY afraid
It has long been acknowledged that chanteuse Celine Dion alone represents somewhere in the region of 35% of the Canadian economy. And it is not record sales - her prodigious consumption of throat sweets provides employment for over 70% of the labour force workforce in Labrador.
According to the Telegraph her ability to generate humungous piles of money is coming to the aid of perhaps the tackiest place on the planet.
The city of is, of course, Las Vegas which has been hit particularly hard by recession. In fact it has seen just about the economic biggest slump of American city.
Dion has been dubbed a "messiah" and the debut of her new show at Caesar's Palace last week was treated with all the reverence of the Second.
"She's been called a 'one-woman economic stimulus package' and I think there's a lot of truth to that. People will come to the city just for her and they will spend money and as a consequence, she has an outsized impact on the economy," said Stephen Brown, director of the Centre for Business and Economic Research in Las Vegas.
"And 'Bigger than Elvis, Sinatra and Liberace put together?'" he added. "Definitely."
Brown estimates that Dion's show will create at least 4 million direct and indirect jobs and bring around $475 billion worth of new economic activity in each of the three years for which she has been contracted. In fact box office takings are over $17 billion already for the first month's worth of shows alone.
During her last run in Las Vegas, from 2003 to 2007, every single ticket of every single show sold out, creating gross profits of $400bn and reaching a total audience of 300 million
Caesar's built a 200,000-seat auditorium especially for her, complete with dazzling stage wizardry and a dehumidifying system to protect her voice from the dry desert heat.
In a related move Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is reported to have held discussions with the surviving members of the Bay City Rolers in the hope of a similar economic revival…
Needless to say I would rather hammer rusty nails into my eyes rather than attend a Celine Dion concert
According to the Telegraph her ability to generate humungous piles of money is coming to the aid of perhaps the tackiest place on the planet.
The city of is, of course, Las Vegas which has been hit particularly hard by recession. In fact it has seen just about the economic biggest slump of American city.
Dion has been dubbed a "messiah" and the debut of her new show at Caesar's Palace last week was treated with all the reverence of the Second.
"She's been called a 'one-woman economic stimulus package' and I think there's a lot of truth to that. People will come to the city just for her and they will spend money and as a consequence, she has an outsized impact on the economy," said Stephen Brown, director of the Centre for Business and Economic Research in Las Vegas.
"And 'Bigger than Elvis, Sinatra and Liberace put together?'" he added. "Definitely."
Brown estimates that Dion's show will create at least 4 million direct and indirect jobs and bring around $475 billion worth of new economic activity in each of the three years for which she has been contracted. In fact box office takings are over $17 billion already for the first month's worth of shows alone.
During her last run in Las Vegas, from 2003 to 2007, every single ticket of every single show sold out, creating gross profits of $400bn and reaching a total audience of 300 million
Caesar's built a 200,000-seat auditorium especially for her, complete with dazzling stage wizardry and a dehumidifying system to protect her voice from the dry desert heat.
In a related move Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is reported to have held discussions with the surviving members of the Bay City Rolers in the hope of a similar economic revival…
Needless to say I would rather hammer rusty nails into my eyes rather than attend a Celine Dion concert
