Nightlife is Las Vegas’ best-known pastime. The city is split between the Strip and Downtown, both of which offer an overwhelming assortment of evening activities. Downtown tends to offer smaller venues, while the enormous hotel complexes of the Strip offer a wide variety of entertainment options at each individual complex. Las Vegas is a 24-hour city and alcohol can be bought at any time of day or night.

Casino hotels tend to house not only the best-known stage shows but also all the late-night bars, nightclubs and live music and between them the Las Vegas casinos provide more than 100 shows every day, from small-scale magic demonstrations to big-budget extravaganzas. The most popular shows are arguably those of the Cirque du Soleil, such as Mystère at Treasure Island and ‘O’ at the Bellagio.

During the 1990s, Las Vegas nightlife was dominated by megaclubs, now though, smaller ‘ultra lounges’ have become the lastest trend. When the shows spill out at midnight there are dozens of clubs and lounge bars to move on to. Among the best is Ghostbar at the Palms Hotel, 55 storeys above the Strip, which has one of the most spectacular views of the city at night from an open-air sky deck. Caramel at Bellagio is more of a lounge bar than a club with a cosy atmosphere. V bar at the Venetian is overrun at weekends by the in-crowd who go to network, the Fireside Lounge in the Peppermill is an authentic 1970s leftover, whilst The Bar at Times Square at New York New York aims to create the ambiance of an old New York city pub with nightly entertainment, and Coyote Ugly, a copy of the NYC original, also at New York-New York, is loud, brash and has no seating, yet there’s always a queue to get in. If you’re in the mood for clubbing, then the biggest and easily the best nightclubs are in the hotels - try Rain at Palms, Ra at the Luxor or Studio54 at the MGM Grand.