It’s a (Sudden) Wrap on Terry Fator’s Las Vegas Career
Posted on: September 24, 2025, 10:58h.
Last updated on: September 24, 2025, 11:25h.
- Ventriloquist Terry Fator’s voice has suddenly been quieted after his show at the Strat closed on Tuesday night
- Fator, a former “America’s Got Talent” winner, has been performing consistently on the Las Vegas Strip for more than 16 years
- Fator says he plans to take his show on the road
Terry Fator’s unbroken, 16 ½-year run on the Las Vegas Strip has broken a little earlier than he planned. Only Tuesday morning, producers of the “America’s Got Talent”-winning ventriloquist’s latest residency, at the Strat Theater, announced that Tuesday evening’s show would be its last.
“Las Vegas will always be my home, and I’ve loved every moment performing at The Strat for fans from all over the globe,” Fator said in a statement issued by a PR firm at 4 am. “I can’t wait to bring my characters, comedy, and music to symphony stages, share some brand-new television projects, and expand my touring schedule with an all-new road show.”
The reason for the move was obviously anemic public interest. Either that or a sex scandal is always the reason any show or restaurant closes in Las Vegas — as our colleague Vital Vegas often points out.
Adam Steck, who produced “Terry Fator: One Man, a Hundred Voices, a Thousand Laughs” through his SPI Entertainment, did tell the Las Vegas Review-Journal last month that 2025 attendance across most of his productions – which also include psychic Matt Fraser and “Rouge” at the Strat and “The Australian Bee Gees Show” and Mac King at the Excalibur. — were off 15%–20%, owing to the Las Vegas visitation downturn. Steck said that “Thunder Down Under,” his long-running Australian male revue also at Excalibur, was holding its own, however.
“The Strat Theater has always been a tough room,” Mike Weatherford, former entertainment columnist for the R-J, told Casino.org, “and he’s kind of been on a downward trajectory in terms of venue size.
“Still, I was surprised to hear it myself as Fator’s a red-state act, so there certainly seems like a large market there.”
Fator and his inanimate cast of characters — including Vikki the Cougar, Winston the Impersonating Turtle, and country singer Walter T. Airdale — began their long run of 3,500 Las Vegas residency performances at the Mirage in February 2009.
Still hot from his “AGT” win two years earlier, Fator signed a five-year contract to perform in the former Danny Gans Theater. (The impressionist switched to the Encore Theater at the Wynn just three months before he died from an accidental painkiller overdose.)
In 2022, “AGT” creator Simon Cowell told People magazine there was “no question” that Terry Fator was “the most successful contestant we’ve ever had.”
“He’s had three Vegas deals … worth about a hundred million,” the legendarily unimpressionable host added.
Not Fator Away
What goes up must come down, as they say, and 11 years later, the Mirage was struggling from the pandemic shutdown and seeking to refresh its entertainment lineup. When Fator’s contract lapsed in December 2020, it wasn’t renewed.
After a temporary run at the former Zumanity Theater, Fator performed at the Liberty Loft, an upper-level New York-New York venue with only 300 seats — less than a quarter the size of his Mirage digs!
Fator more than doubled his venue size when he landed at the Strat Theater in May 2024 to perform his final 200 shows. But the production obviously didn’t earn enough to weather the current economic downturn.
“Whatever happened, it’s pretty impressive that he had a continued presence on the Strip since early 2009,” Weatherford said. “That kind of longevity is usually for the shows with an interchangeable cast, not something that depends on one guy’s voice.
“That said, everything has a shelf life. Beyond the specifics of how big a challenge the room was, and how much had to be spent to advertise it, you may just reach that point where everyone has seen him … twice.”
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