Encounter with Tom Bergeron, Conrad Green, and More at Dancing with the Stars Live Las Vegas
I’m sure that Princess Heidi, Vogue, and Courtney have been wondering and waiting for me to finally get around to posting about the Dancing with the Stars Live Las Vegas event. I apologize for the delay. Needless to say that it was a night to remember.
I think I’ll save comments on the show itself for another post and just include some of the pre and post party entertainment in this post. Although, it’s worth mentioning that Dancing with the Stars Live Las Vegas was incredibly well designed and wonderfully executed. I actually plan to go and see it again. I hope the show does really well and gets extended for a really long run. Las Vegas needs a ballroom show. So, go and buy some tickets for DWTS Live Las Vegas. Looks like it’s already been extended through July 7th.
Now, to the pre-show festivities. I showed up quite early to the Tropicana to meet my friend for dinner. We chose to eat at the delicious Bacio inside of the Tropicana. We ate at a table that was basically out in the main hallway. Turns out that it was the perfect table. As we sat their eating our dinner we saw almost every star and DWTS pro pass by. If I was in full paparazzi mode I’d have pulled out the video camera and gotten some footage. Although, I just felt creepy doing that. Sorry guys. It’s just not me. I would recommend you doing the same if you go to the show. I bet you’ll see many pass by before the show since the hotel tower is down that hall and I’m sure many of the stars and pros are staying in the tower.
After enjoying the dinner and Dancing with the Stars gazing, I headed over to the pre-party for the show. Yep, there was a pre-party cocktail hour and then a post-party at the club in the Tropicana. I wasn’t sure who would be at the pre-party, but it turns out a bunch of the DWTS pros that were attending the premiere stopped by.
Probably the most popular person at the pre-party was Tom Bergeron. When I saw him, I knew I had to get a picture with him to make Princess Heidi jealous. In fact, I think I told him as much. Tom seemed to respond fine to the idea of him being her boyfriend.
If you take a look at the photo, many of you might not recognize the man in the middle (I’m the one on the left and Tom is on the right of course). At first I wasn’t sure who he was either, but after talking for a minute with Tom and him I correctly guessed him as Conrad Green, executive producer of Dancing with the Stars. He was shocked when I asked him if he was Conrad Green saying something like I surely didn’t recognize his face. I’ll admit that I was pretty lucky since I’m usually terrible with names.
The great part of meeting Tom and Conrad was that I mentioned Pure DWTS and they both knew about the site. It sounded like Tom had seen our work on Twitter before and Conrad seemed to know the site really well. In fact, he mentioned that the thing he loved most about Pure DWTS is that we were real fans of the show as opposed to other media outlets that are just trying to file a story.
Conrad also paid Pure DWTS a great compliment when he told me that he was always amazed at how good Pure DWTS was at predicting the partners for the upcoming season of DWTS. He then kind of hypothesized out loud that it kind of made sense that we could do it so well since we go through a similar process to what they do in matching partners. Of course, we all already knew that this is basically what they were doing when they paired up the couples. If I was quicker on my feet I would have suggested that Pure DWTS could help him with the pairings if he wanted.
I also asked Conrad about having A-list stars on Dancing with the Stars. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a full answer, because just as I asked him and Tom started heading into the show. Although, he did reply that Dancing with the Stars won’t ever really get A-list Stars. I’m sure there was more to his answer before he went into the show. Based on the way he said it, I assume he also felt like DWTS didn’t necessarily need A-list stars on the show. Sure, they’d love to have them, but he was realistic in his understanding that most true A-list celebrities won’t be going on DWTS. I think Conrad is right about not necessarily needing A-list stars. 20 million viewers seem to agree. In fact, there’s something cool about DWTS helping us to see another side of some stars and to get to know stars we’d normally never have learned about otherwise.
Another highlight meeting of my DWTS Las Vegas pre-party event was meeting Elena Grinenko (DWTS Pro) and Rib Hillis (Extreme Makeover Home Edition).
Most of you will recognize Elena and Rib from their recently launched Dance Junkies TV videos which we’ve posted before. Sadly for me Stuart Brazell wasn’t there also, but Elena and Rib were very nice and hopefully we can work together with them on stuff in the future.
I have a video of Rib interviewing Tony Dovolani at the pre-party event too that I’ll post with the next writeup. Although, I think their video turned out better.
I’m not really sure what I should mention about the post-party event. I should have cracked my way into the ABC/DWTS section of the club to talk with more of the pros, Stars, Tom and Conrad, but I didn’t. Needless to say, everyone was having a good time and there was quite a bit of dancing happening all around.
One thing that was interesting was the number of people from So You Think You Can Dance that were there at the event as well. It makes sense because something like 6 of the DWTS pros and DWTS Troupe in the show were on So You Think You Can Dance. Plus, that same day was the first taping of the SYTYCD Las Vegas auditions. I’ll be doing a full write up on SYTYCD over on Pure SYTYCD. Not to mention, Twitch, Comfort and Allison dancing at the DWTS Live after party.
There was obviously a lot of intermingling and friendship between the dancers from DWTS and SYTYCD. Jason Gilkison who choreographed DWTS Live Las Vegas was there and from what I saw mostly hung out with SYTYCD which made sense because he’s a choreographer on SYTYCD. As Nigel Lythgoe has said before, these kids need work. I’m glad that SYTYCD and DWTS aren’t super territorial about it all.
Ok, that’s enough for now. I’ll continue my write up of Dancing with the Stars Live Las Vegas in my next post. Plus, in it I’ll post the video I took of Tom Bergeron dancing on stage. Well, at least the part of it I got before they stopped me.
Oh, what fun! Thanks for the report John.
Great post, John and so happy DWTS folks are aware of a site many of us could not live without “PureDWTS”. IMO many of us depend on this site for our fixes, laughs, updates and withdrawal between seasons. Can’t wait for part 2 and I’m ready for a Vegas trip.
John, I am soooooooo jealous! 🙂 Glad to hear you had such a good time, and THANK YOU for writing about it!!!!
Thanks!
If I was smarter I would have mentioned to Tom and Conrad how many times we’ve gotten comments about Pure DWTS making DWTS better for them. That always makes me happy to hear.
I think we should do a Pure DWTS Vegas party. Maybe we can convinve the @troplv to sponsor it and get readers some time with the dancers. Would be fun, no?
LOLLLL to how Tom responded fine to the idea of him being Princess Heidi’s boyfriend. That is so funny!! Poor Miss. She will be jealous!!
And I agree too how DWTS doesn’t need A-listers. I love the show and it’s kept me hooked since it started. I just love “dancing”.
I love what Conrad and Tom said about the site as well. Soooo soo cool John.
Elena and Rib look so nice! I wish Stuart was there too. Maybe next time?
Anyway, excellent write up. Thanks for taking us there and for the fun pics too. I can’t wait for Part two!!!
Elena and Rib were really nice. Elena was perfect elegance and so sweet. Her accent in person sounded just like Karina’s (which makes sense), but in person it was really apparent to me. Rib was this ball of energy. You could see he was energized by the whole thing.
Wait for the write up of the show. Lots more to say about that.
You lucky duck!!! Thanks so much for sharing with us! Can’t wait to hear about the show! 😀
Wow, that’s awesome! What amazing (and appropriate) compliments!
Everyone just better step away from my boyfriend Tom, that’s all I’m saying. 🙂
So cool John!!!
And btw, let me know the date for the Pure DWTS Vegas Party!! I will do my darndest to go!
Thanks for the blog John! I want to say congratulations to all of your PDWTS bloggers for doing a superb job on this blog. It must be so cool to know that Tom and Conrad are familiar or very familiar with your work! Great job, guys!
Wow, great job John and thanks so much! I love how well-known Pure DWTS is becoming as the premier fan site for the show. Its classy, smart, entertaining, informative and so much fun. The DWTS experience wouldn’t be the same without this wonderful site. Can’t wait for part 2 and a trip to Vegas would be fantastic!
John, Do they have a set cast for this series of shows thru July 7 and who are they, or do they rotate dancers in and out. Also is there any chance that any of the pros like Karina, Kym, Derek or Tristan will appear in the shows.
A Vegas trip sounds like fun.
mimi,
I’m not sure we or they know all the answers to those questions yet. It does seem like they’ll rotate them through. For example, Tony said he was going to sub for Carson for some of the shows. Seems like an odd exchange for me. Plus, there’s no way Tony could do Carson’s spot justice in the show, but it would be fun to see him try.
I think there’s a chance we’d see the pros you mention. Plus, the longer it stays there the more likely more of the pros will go and do it. I’m sure it will be about how much the pros can make doing that versus the other offers they have.
I’ll reach out to the Tropicana this summer to see if we can put something together.
Thanks, John. Can’t wait for the next installment.
Derek is so in demand, I doubt he’d be able to do the show (sigh), but if they could entice Tristan to participate, I’d be hopping on a plane for Vegas!
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