Council OKs Vegas-Style Show For This November

OCEAN CITY – A Las Vegas-style musical act designed for the older generation is slated to take the stage in November at the Roland E. Powell Convention Center.

This week the Tourism Advisory Board (TAB) presented the Mayor and City Council with two projects to be approved for funding out of its $300,000 annual allocation from the town.

On top of approving $100,000 for a movie to be filmed in Ocean City later this month, the council also approved Silver Sizzles, a Vegas style revue with glitz and glamour musical put on by seniors, ages 55 plus, which includes former Rockettes and Broadway players, singers and actors. The show targets a 55-year-old-and-older audience.

“It is exciting,” Convention Center Director Larry Noccolino said. “You would be very surprised.”

Noccolino proposed Silver Sizzles to TAB as an example event to book others like it in the future when the Roland E. Powell Convention Center’s new performing arts center is completed in the facility’s second phase of its renovations.

The production will go from Thursday through Sunday in the second weekend of November, Nov. 8-10. There will be six shows that run 90 minutes each, starting with a show Thursday night, two shows Friday and Saturday night and finishing with a matinee on Sunday.

“I have talked to hoteliers in Ocean City, some are here today, and they are standing firmly behind it,” Noccolino said. “We think it will drive room nights as well as restaurant business.”

TAB recommended the Mayor and Council approve a guarantee of $13,500 for Silver Sizzles. Ticket prices are slated for $20 and if 1,500 tickets are sold, the $13,500 investment would be recouped.

The council voted unanimously to approve TAB’s recommendation and move forward with Silver Sizzles.

Out of TAB’s $300,000 for the fiscal year 2013, $15,000 has spent on BikeFest, $13,500 on Silver Sizzles, and $100,000 on Ping Pong Summer. That comes to a balance of $171,500.

There is also $25,000 that has been carried over from 2012 which will go toward the current series of events that include weekly laser light and firework shows on the Boardwalk put on by T.E.A.M Productions.