Chippendales Moving to Third Vegas Venue in a Year

Posted on: May 14, 2025, 12:43h. 

Last updated on: May 14, 2025, 01:17h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Vegas Myths Busted.
  • Chippendales is switching to its third theater in a year this summer
  • The 23-year-old production show, which closed at the Rio last year, had trouble filling the 575 seats at the Linq’s Mat Franco Theater
  • The next (and possibly last) stop is Planet Hollywood

The Chippendales are changing Las Vegas theaters like they do costumes. After fewer than four months at the Mat Franco Theater at the Linq Hotel, word comes from the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the male revue will move to another Caesars Entertainment property, Planet Hollywood, this summer.

Chippendales’ Vegas show is moving for the third time in a year this summer, but one thing these guys won’t need any help with is moving. (Image: Chippendales)

The Chippendales opened at the Linq on January 17, after its 23-year run at the Rio — the former Caesars property that gave the troupe its own theater — ended on New Year’s Eve.

Pack Up Your Thongs

Ticket sales were weak from the beginning. According to the R-J, the relocated production often sold fewer than 100 of the 575 seats available for each show, forcing the cancelation of its Sunday matinee performances and the “Chipps & Salsa” brunch package at Chayo. (Its Rio theater held only 400.)

The Chippendales’ current run isn’t selling tickets after July 31, though singer and theater namesake Franco has dates listed through the end of the year.

The Sin City Theatre at Planet Hollywood, the show’s next home, has only 250 seats to fill. It was built in 2012 for “Sin City Comedy & Burlesque,” then hosted the “Crazy Girls” topless female revue, along with magician Murray Sawchuck, from 2012 to 2015.

These days, the Chippendales brand is being hurt by four challenges:

  1. A general decline in ticket sales for Las Vegas production shows due to competition from superstar residencies
  2. Competition from “Thunder Down Under” at the Excalibur and especially “Magic Mike Live” at the Sahara, a male revue that spawned three Hollywood movies
  3. A decline in tourism due to economic and political forces
  4. Age (of the brand, not the cast!)

Historical Bowties

Chippendales was founded in 1975 by Indian immigrant Steve Banerjee, who noticed that American men were unfairly discriminated against in the field of being regarded as sex objects without a brain.

Wildly popular by the early ’80s — when its trademark white cuffs and bowtie was as recognizable as the Playboy bunny — Chippendales closed its Los Angeles and New York clubs later that decade after Banerjee was charged with the murder of his business partner, then committed suicide.

A touring shadow of its former self, the Chippendales show was purchased in the ’90s and rooted at the Rio in 2002 by Lou Pearlman, a man with his own legal problems. The former manager of Backstreet Boys and N’ Sync, Pearlman was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for his role in a Ponzi scheme. (He died in prison in 2016.)

Full disclosure: This reporter danced in the Las Vegas Chippendale’s show for one night in 2006 (but only for a story).