New Name for Hard Rock Hotel?
What's in a name? For the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas, it could be a lot.
The Hard Rock restaurant chain has filed a lawsuit against the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel that essentially says they want their name back. The hotel, which is operated by the Morgans Hotel Group, licenses use of the name and is not actually run by the same company that does the omnipresent restaurants.
The heart of the lawsuit is the restaurant chain's assertion that the hotel is damaging their good name (go ahead - make your own jokes) with its over-the-top, almost anything goes style partying at their nightclubs and weekly pool parties called Rehab. The straw that reportedly broke the guitar string was a new reality show on TruTV about Rehab that, according the lawsuit, "revels in drunken debauchery."
If the restaurant chain wins, the hotel would have to change its name and its entire look and feel, which is completely wrapped up in the rock and roll aesthetic. The lawsuit calls for not only monetary damages but for them to get rid of everything even remotely related to the Hard Rock brand.
Morgans has some options if it comes to that. They were trying to bring their upscale Mondrian and Delano brands to Las Vegas as a part of the now mothballed Echelon project on The Strip, so it's possible that they could change the Hard Rock into one of those. Doing so would certainly not be cheap, but the bigger question is whether the hotel could hold onto its youth appeal without the Hard Rock name hanging off the front of it.
Stay tuned.
from:
http://vegas4visitors.com/column/index.htm
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