"Superstar residencies in Las Vegas are certainly nothing new, but that doesn’t mean the industry isn’t changing. In fact, the idea of what a musical residency in Sin City has been turned on its head, and the medium is experiencing something of a renaissance, and it’s all thanks to Britney Spears. Before Britney and her Piece Of Me show came along, a Las Vegas residency was typically reserved for those performers whose time in the spotlight had all but passed. It was not for singers and bands who are still in their prime, but rather it was the perfect next step for the kind of star that the world still respects, but for whom the spotlight had moved on from. There is still room for those legacy acts, but the times they are a changing, and a new audience is headed to Vegas for entirely different shows. Spears is perhaps not in her “prime”, but she is still recording and releasing music that has a very good chance of performing well sales-wise and on the charts, whereas artists like Elton John or Celine Dion (to provide just two examples) may still create new music, but it’s unlikely that any of their new material will appear on top 40 radio. In the two-plus years since Britney began her Piece Of Me show, she has proven that it won’t stop her from her regular release schedule. In fact, her residency kicked off just weeks after her most recent album, Britney Jean, hit store shelves, and since then she unleashed new single “Pretty Girls”. While none of the songs she’s launched since taking up in Vegas have become big hits (“Girls” barely cracked the top 40, while another single, “Perfume”, missed it entirely), it’s hard to argue that people didn’t pay attention, or that she’s “done”. Though Britney makes several hundred thousand dollars per night, it is apparently still a moneymaker for the venue, and she just recently renewed for another two years. Now that the experiment has been proven successful, other singers and venues are jumping on board with the trend. Mariah Carey recently kicked off her tenure, while Jennifer Lopez begins hers shortly. With just one pop star, the connotation connected to having a Las Vegas residency has been completely changed, and now it’s a cool thing that all the biggest names in music want. They are able to see the value in signing on to do them, and they no longer need to worry about what it will do to their image. It will be interesting to see who becomes the next current superstar to head to Las Vegas and set up shop."
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