Chief Operating Officer - North America, Wynn Resorts
Wynn Las Vegas President Brian Gullbrants
The President of Wynn Las Vegas Brian Gullbrants sits for a wide-ranging interview touching on leadership, delivering bespoke experiences, how Las Vegas innovates, F1 and much more.
About Brian Gullbrants
In a December 2022 interview, Wynn Las Vegas President Brian Gullbrants discussed the company's pandemic-era decision to continue paying hourly employees, including average tips and healthcare, stating that this allowed the property to retain its staff when it reopened. He described a daily practice of writing a message to the company's 1,400 leaders, who are required to pass it along to all employees, and said that employees remember how they were treated during difficult times. Gullbrants also outlined environmental goals, including achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, peaking CO2 by 2030, and sourcing 50% of energy from renewables by 2030. Gullbrants noted that the company renovated all Wynn rooms at a cost of $220 million, and described the focus of CEO Craig Billings and himself as deploying capital to keep the property fresh and relevant. He mentioned that Wynn has 37 acres across the Strip, and in conjunction with Formula 1, Insomniac, and Live Nation, there will be a large activation on that site, with Wynn as a founding partner of Formula 1. He also discussed the creation of bespoke experiences, such as the Harland dinners, saying the goal is to "make the untouchable touchable" and create experiences that people could not otherwise have.
Transcript (109 segments)
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Glenn Haussman0:18
Hospitality, hey everybody! Welcome to No Vacancy Live. I'm of course I'm Glenn Haussman. We got Anthony Melur here. Anthony, where are you? How are you doing today, friend?
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Anthony Melur0:26
I am 100 yards from the Patriot Stadium, and I'm actually going on the field in two hours and we're going to be able to throw footballs around. So wow. I'm from New York, so I am a Jet fan, but I love the Patriots and I can't wait to get on the stadium.
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Glenn Haussman0:41
Well, I can't wait for that either. But let me tell you something, I couldn't wait for this. I've been looking forward to this for several months now. I want to thank the good folks at Bluewire Studios for hosting us here on No Vacancy Live today. It's going to be a really super special show because today we're featuring Brian Gullbrants, president of Wynn Resort. So we'll get to that in just one minute.
Sweets, plus the portfolio of Choice Hotels you know and love. Think about that as Ascend Collection. Check them out at choicehotels.com. And don't forget, if you want to get into a property, they've got a great diversity program to help folks just like you get into hotel ownership. Again, Choice Hotels. All right, let's get on. I am in Las Vegas, Anthony, but you're not here. What a shame.
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Anthony Melur1:31
No, unfortunately I am not. I had to stay behind. I had a meeting in Boston, but I will be there first thing in the morning. And tell everybody, we're going to geek out a little bit about how excited we are about this podcast. I am so excited. Again, Bluewire Studios is making this possible, along with the good folks over at Wynn. Brian Gullbrants, welcome to the show. How are you?
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Brian Gullbrants1:48
I'm so delighted to be here. I've been following the story of Wynn since the company's inception. I remember being here when Wynn first opened.
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Glenn Haussman2:11
It's been a while, but now you're back here. You started at the end of August back over here. What is that experience like for you, being the prodigal president returning to Las Vegas?
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Brian Gullbrants2:20
I don't know about prodigal anything, but it's been so great to come home to all of the people that I've kind of grown up with for the last 14 years here. It's a wonderful staff. I love working here. They shipped me off to Boston to open Encore Boston Harbor. I didn't do anything wrong, just to be clear. I wound up in Boston for four wonderful years and loved it there. It's a cool town. Anthony's there now. Go Pats, have fun out there buddy. It was a little too cold for me though.
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Glenn Haussman2:51
Oh yeah, for sure. I was just there a couple weeks ago and it was snowing. I'm like, come on.
What's that process like?
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Brian Gullbrants3:13
It was actually a wonderful process. It was kind of like coming in floating on a cloud, but knowing that there was a lot of work ahead. But because I'd already been here for nine years, went away for four, came back, and it was just so nice to come home. Four years in Vegas time is like 20 years normal hotel time. A lot changes. And there was a little thing called the pandemic that happened in between.
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Glenn Haussman3:36
Yeah, I must have missed that. I don't know, I was home for a while. I wasn't paying attention.
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Brian Gullbrants3:39
But the team here and the team there, the whole company did an amazing job. We wound up paying everybody through the pandemic. Not just hourly, we paid the average tips, we paid their healthcare. And so when we reopened our businesses all around the world, we had all our staff.
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Anthony Melur4:10
The pandemic, I've learned a lot coming home. I learn every day from everybody that's around. Glenn, you know, I was speaking to Glenn before we got on the podcast about exactly that. During the pandemic, how you guys stayed the course, you paid your employees. And when I went back to your hotels and I talked to your employees just casually, every single one of them said, 'I'm an employee for life. I'm not going anywhere. All my other friends are having challenges, and I will never leave.' They were literally almost out of breath when they're talking about how much they appreciate that.
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Brian Gullbrants4:46
Yeah, it's the culture that you create and how you treat your people. I think that's not just business but life. It's all about relationships. And we learned that through a lot of trials.
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Glenn Haussman5:11
Because that fear of a new president coming in must not have been there like it might have been under other circumstances.
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Brian Gullbrants5:16
Oh, there's always an uneasiness, I think, in any organization when there is a change, especially at the higher level of the organization. When that happens, no matter what position you're at, when there's a change at the CEO level, COO, or president level, people are a little uneasy. 'What's this guy going to be all about?' or 'What's this lady about?' And hopefully, most of them already knew who I was and felt comfortable with that. I got a lot of hugs, mutually agreed upon of course. It was really nice to come home and just embrace the staff. It was great.
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Glenn Haussman5:54
That's great. But when you're coming home to the company, during the pandemic you all pull together. And Vegas is a town that's truly a hospitality town, and it feels like you all move together.
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Brian Gullbrants6:19
Yeah, listen, I'm a huge fan of Vegas. I love living here. We raised our two daughters here. We have a great community of friends. I know the people and my competitors up and down the street. Our competitors are fantastic. It is a small town with approaching three million people. It's great that you go out to dinner in Summerlin and see half the people in the restaurant walk by. You're like, 'Hey, how you doing? Haven't seen you in a while.' It's great.
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Glenn Haussman6:49
That's interesting. It really is a community. It's a hospitality community. Everything you're saying, you see all the people from the different hotels, but everybody has worked for all the different companies.
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Brian Gullbrants7:11
Somebody says, 'You did my orientation back in 2000-something,' and I was like, 'Yeah, thanks.' So it's a great community and a great industry to be a part of. I love hospitality.
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Glenn Haussman7:22
Yeah, yeah. In fact, the reason we're talking to you today is because of our great producer, Dr. Producer Suzanne, because you guys have worked together in another life, as I understand.
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Brian Gullbrants7:31
Great lady. Yeah, I spoke to her class last year.
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Glenn Haussman7:33
You spoke to her class last year or something?
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Brian Gullbrants7:35
I did. I try to speak to as many students in as many classes as we can. I just joined the board of the UNLV Hospitality School. You want to give back. I think we all learn throughout our careers, and we're all benefactors of all the people that have been around us. At some point, when you start to have white fur on your chin, you go...
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Glenn Haussman8:11
And then every day I write a message to all of our employees, really? That's beautiful. So tell me, when you speak to students, what is the message about why hospitality is the best business to get into for your career?
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Brian Gullbrants8:22
Well, first I try to scare them and say, 'Don't do this. You're crazy if you want to do this.' But if you're okay with working every holiday, working like crazy for a little pay, and really love people, this is the right business to be in. Then I go on and tell them stories about how I fell into this. Then there's Q&A, and the questions are always interesting. I try to help as many people as I can.
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Glenn Haussman8:48
That's awesome. Anthony, you know, when you're talking about getting into this career field, there's zero barrier to entry. In the beginning, it's long hours, but the people you grew up watching on TV or in movies, that's what I try to tell people. This is an exciting industry, but you have to be excited to be in the industry. I want to go back to the note, because I've heard your note writing is legendary. So tell me about that note that you write every day. How do you start the note? What motivates you to start a note every morning? What's your inspiration?
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Brian Gullbrants9:31
Great question. I have 12,000 inspirations every day, and they're the people who work here. So inevitably, I bump into a situation, or a person, or a piece of trash on the floor, or a VIP group coming in. I'm really inspired by others. I sit down every night at 6 or 7 o'clock and write two or three paragraphs and shoot it out via email to all 1,400 leaders, and then all the leaders forward it to the rest of the organization every day, every shift. It's pretty cool. Sometimes it's informational, sometimes it's educational, and I try to be inspirational. It's whatever you're feeling passionate about at that given moment.
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Glenn Haussman10:26
It's fantastic. And the recognition part of it is my favorite. When I can recognize somebody and make them feel good about themselves, you can elevate someone's self-esteem. There's no better thing to do than make somebody feel really good about themselves. They walk around this place chest out a little further, head up a little higher, walking tall. And then all the people around them that work with them see that they got the recognition, and they're like, 'I want to get the recognition.' I think it helps people. It gives them license to do more than just the job description. When somebody goes above and beyond...
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Anthony Melur11:10
In a lot of hotels across the country, that intensity is really... sometimes there's intensity with no pride, and that's not good because that means people are scared. There is an intensity of pride in your building that you can feel when you walk past the employee.
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Brian Gullbrants11:30
No corniness, I love our team. I passionately love what we do. I love hospitality. I hope that they sense that it's not an act. It's what we do. When I come into work, I think all of us here have a really strong sense of pride and ownership. We encourage that. We want you to own it. It's your job to have a sense of urgency. If you see something, you say something.
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Glenn Haussman12:10
And every time I walk around, I see people picking that up. But I'm curious, recognition is so important. You have 12,000 people here and you're overseeing all of this. How do you find out about all of those moments that deserve recognition in order to be able to share that?
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Brian Gullbrants12:23
You don't. Unfortunately, there's probably thousands and thousands of things happening every day that you don't get to recognize. So it's not me, it's the 1,400 leaders we have and the 12,000 people we have. I'm fortunate enough that people will bubble that up. They'll say, 'Hey, what's going on? You should hear about this.' Then I push it out. But it's really on the leaders that are here to make sure that the frontline people are really enjoying what they're doing, well supplied, well taught.
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Anthony Melur13:10
Doing it for the sake of hospitality, no repercussions for bad decisions. I tell everybody in orientation, 'You're going to make mistakes, and it's okay. I make them every day.' I have two ladies in my life that point them out: my wife and my assistant. I think I've made so many mistakes in my life that there are very few left to make. That's how I got here. You have to let the employees know that it's okay to make a mistake. I'm clear to say, 'Just don't make the same mistake twice. Learn from those mistakes, and each day get a little bit better.'
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Glenn Haussman13:44
Yeah, you know, you said something that's very interesting. You said 'supervisor' because we all think about you and the managers and the presidents and the general managers of these resorts, but it really comes down to not even a line employee, it comes down to the supervisor.
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Brian Gullbrants14:12
And why you're laughing, we just had this conversation. I'll tell you a quick story. We had a great housekeeper, to remain nameless and anonymous. She did an amazing job, so we promoted her to supervisor. We started getting complaints from her floor. She was a supervisor. We bring her down to HR and we're like, 'What's going on?' She's like, 'You know, back in my career, many different people, when they got the best results, they would just yell. So now it's my turn to yell.' We're like, 'No, no, no, no, no. We obviously have a problem here.' We've gone through and I personally have said we need leadership training. Our team needs leadership training. I've been working with our HR team to create a leadership training program. I think this is going to be mandatory, even for the people that need reminders. The clear message is it's our job to support, teach, mentor, guide, supply. It is not our job to do or to yell or to scream. It's to be respectful. I think in generations past, that might have been acceptable. That's not acceptable in today's workforce, and it's not acceptable.
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Anthony Melur15:38
This also makes you an amazing leader because instead of holding that person to blame, you blamed yourself and took accountability for not giving that individual the right amount of training in order to be successful in that job that you put that individual in.
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Brian Gullbrants15:50
That's right. You have to be able to look in the mirror and say, 'Yeah, we did everything we should have done.' Then we want you as a leader, as a supervisor, to treat our ladies and gentlemen.
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Glenn Haussman16:13
Fascinating. I love that. I think it's way worse. It's really important. We were just talking about this this morning at a meeting I'm at. It's about there's a million things that can go wrong or go right in a hotel. There is no way you can train all of that. What you can do is you can train situational awareness and not to take it personally, and how to get... I always say, 'How do I get from zero to 100?' Meaning there's a mistake, it's at zero, now we have to go to 100 to make it better. How do we get there as quickly as possible so we're not further inconveniencing our guest? To me, that kind of training you're doing is really your number one job, because that's why you've become successful. You've understood situational awareness of...
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Brian Gullbrants17:12
Our ladies and gentlemen at the top of the pyramid, at the largest base, they're the ones that are actually taking care of our customers. Where the rubber meets the road, they're the most important people here. I am the least important person here. If I don't show up, nobody even cares. Nobody knows. My assistant closes the door, 'He's in a meeting.' It's pretty cool. The supervisors then are right underneath that, and then you've got everybody all the way down. But you have to always realize that the magic, the experience, is created by that line-level staff. I used to be important when I was a bellman, a server, a busboy, a limo driver, until I crashed the limo. Twice. It was brutal.
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Glenn Haussman18:11
All right, all right. But you also said something that's very important that I don't think we teach enough: you have to make mistakes. It's absolutely mandatory you make mistakes, because the only way for us to grow is to make mistakes. The people that don't make mistakes aren't moving.
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Brian Gullbrants18:28
That's right. You can't fall standing still, unless you're Glenn. But you have to... True. Sadly, it's true. I don't know why I invited you. I have no idea. You know what they say: you can't steal second with your foot on first. It's true. I always rather push people back and say, 'Hey, just take a breath,' then push people forward, because if you're not moving, you can't make a mistake and you can't grow. I love that.
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Glenn Haussman19:12
The nicest office in the building, literally training and teaching. That's critical, and that's why your company has the reputation it has. Hey, we're all here to hustle. We all got to work, and part of that is we take risks. A podcast studio, I haven't seen one of these in a hotel or another casino. It's fantastic. These guys are amazing. Bluewire, great partners. Thank you, Bluewire. Just different events that we've been moving into. We just partnered with Tom Brady to do TB12 here for customers, which is pretty awesome. The whole idea behind TB12 is you get to understand what his workout regimen is, body and mind, and how it all comes together. We hope it works. He was just here when we did...
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Anthony Melur20:12
You go for it, Anthony. What I was going to say is you just said something so cool. Tom Brady was here, Aaron Rodgers was here. There's somebody that was talking to them that may have been their housekeeper, or somebody that was their driver, or somebody that was their front desk person, their VIP manager. Those are interactions potentially with their heroes they grew up on, simply because they said yes to a job and they took the risk of getting into hospitality. Yes, they worked long hours, but no one has a story about Stevie Wonder playing the piano to them at the O at the Plaza because I kept the restaurant open. I have that story. Nobody has a story of Michael Jordan and Rodman fighting in an elevator in the Plaza and me falling into the ground and then beating me up. No one has that story. These are the things that happen in this industry.
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Glenn Haussman21:10
Because those things happen a lot, and they're fun, but you're working long hours and you have to be there for the customer. You said you have to be there at night, you have to be there on the weekends. If you want to miss every holiday, this may be a good business for you. But you have experiences that no one else has. If you and I sat down for an hour, we probably have 10,000 stories and we'd never finish any of them, because this industry just makes these stories, it makes these moments. But Anthony, you make a great point. Talk about experiences you can't find elsewhere, and that's kind of what we're seeing right now, particularly here in Las Vegas and particularly here at Wynn and Encore Las Vegas. When you're talking about things like the match, when you're talking about all of these special Harlan wine dinners, people have those moments that they couldn't have had otherwise without Wynn in the picture.
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Brian Gullbrants22:17
I think it's up to all of us to push the envelope, to figure out what more we can do for customers, how unique it could be. The Harlan dinners were a great example of us reaching out. We talked to Bill Harlan, and Amanda came out and Will came out. We had three dinners, 22 people, $10,000 a seat. The juice was amazing. We paired them up with three of our chefs, and everybody that was in the room was like, 'This is really magical.' I asked Amanda Harlan, 'How often do you guys do this? I'm sure you guys do this all the time.' She's like, 'We've never done this.' I was like, 'Oh, this is awesome.' They're coming in in a couple weeks, and we're going to talk about what else we can do together. We're also looking at other things like what we do here. Have you guys been to Delilah yet? No, you need to. We opened this restaurant a year and a half ago, and it's magical. We've got a place for dinner. Anthony, you got to come back out here, man. We're going to all go to dinner.
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Anthony Melur23:27
Wait, wait, wait. I'm going to hold you accountable. Tomorrow I'll be there, so maybe we can have dinner there tomorrow.
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Glenn Haussman23:33
All right, we're checking the schedule. Checking the schedule. Tomorrow night it is. Are you serious?
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Anthony Melur23:37
Yeah, he's serious. I'm serious. I'm dead serious. I'm open.
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Brian Gullbrants23:41
We're in. Okay, you're going to love it. It's amazing.
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Glenn Haussman23:44
All right, so speaking about all those types of experiences, you're really refocusing, re-energizing. That's one of the things you have to do with the Las Vegas property. A property that remains stagnant will die in the eyes of the consumer, so you got to keep things fresh.
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Brian Gullbrants24:12
Evolving. During the pandemic, we said, 'Okay, we had a really good run, 16 years plus. It was amazing.' So we went out and found the most creative people, these famously creative people, and they all came together and created something truly amazing that nobody's ever seen. It's not a Cirque-like show, it's not acrobatics. It is a spectacular theatrical show with a storyline. Anthony Hopkins narrates the whole thing, a two-time Academy Award winner. He's a cool guy. The music was all done by Brian Tyler. Michael Curry, who did all of the puppetry for Lion King on Broadway, he's done all of the puppetry. It's going to be next November. There's a lot of buzz, my friend. I am very excited. As a driver myself, I'm excited.
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Glenn Haussman25:18
So are you an F1 driver?
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Brian Gullbrants25:21
No, but he's from New York. All right, so New York, he's an F-U driver. Different type of driver. I would tell you, when you talk about cool experiences, Anthony, two weeks ago, right before the launch of F1, they had a big launch party on Saturday. On Wednesday night, we stayed up and pulled an all-nighter. The Red Bull Racing team and marketing team came in, brought in the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 car, and we raced it through the middle of the casino. We turned it on, they turned it over, and they raced it down the middle of the casino. We protected the guests, so nobody was woken. It was so much fun, except for the people in Awakenings. But they were asleep. When you talk about experiences and things we do, I told our CEO what we were doing. He said, 'Have you lost your mind?' I said, 'Yes, maybe.' But he said, 'Okay, just make sure we have access to the content.' He's absolutely right. It blew up on social. Red Bull's now putting together a compilation of different things that they filmed during the launch, and they're going to push it out. F1 will push it out. We'll push it out.
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Glenn Haussman26:46
I actually saw it on social. I actually saw it. And think about the things you just said in the last five minutes: all the people you've met, all the things you've done. If there's a cooler job on Earth, I'd like to know it.
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Brian Gullbrants27:10
I thought I had a pretty cool job. You have an amazing job. So there it is. A fun industry to be in. You meet so many cool people, like you two guys.
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Glenn Haussman27:22
So what are you thinking? Anthony, go on.
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Anthony Melur27:26
No, go ahead. So how are you guys going to be thinking about this citywide event? I know some of the other groups in town are going to do some fabulous things. What is your area of fabulousness for F1?
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Brian Gullbrants27:38
We've thought about this long and hard. We've actually been meeting for six months every single week. We have multiple teams. This is for three days, a year from now. But I've seen what some of these packages are going for in town. It's probably worth the effort to put into it. It will be financially rewarding. But more importantly, I think the experience of seeing these cars running over 200 miles an hour down the Strip, I can't imagine. We're going to have a front row seat right here at Wynn and Encore. We're really excited to be a founding partner with Formula 1. They're great people. We're doing some exciting stuff. We have 37 acres across the street from us on the Strip. In conjunction with F1, Insomniac, and Live Nation, there's going to be a huge activation across the street. We're looking forward to it. They're finalizing all the plans, and we'll do a big announcement. But we're really excited about all the different experiences that F1 will bring. They're building a permanent building back on Koval and Harmon, the Paddock building where the finish and start line will be, back on property that nobody's even thought about for years. I hope they got a decent deal.
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Glenn Haussman29:10
I heard that we were invited back before, so we can do a podcast, we can do a live podcast from there. That's exciting. All we have to do is buy a $100,000 package and we are in.
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Brian Gullbrants29:28
The requests are already coming hard and fast for all of us. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm just trying to learn how to say no politely 10,000 times. That's going to be quite the challenge.
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Glenn Haussman29:40
All I said was we should be able to do our podcast on there. That would be fun. But yeah, I'll be there somehow. That would be awesome. So going to be exciting. So how do you think about all of the changes that continually happen here, and how do you focus on what's next?
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Brian Gullbrants30:10
You come down the food chain. Craig, our CEO, myself, our focus is how are we deploying capital in the future? How are we going to stay fresh and relevant? What experiences are we going to bring and create to keep us evolving? We just renovated all of the Wynn rooms, $220 million. It was insane. I heard you have four-poster beds now. We have four-poster beds. Now we're about to launch all the villas, and then over to Encore. We just announced in UAE, we broke ground in UAE two weeks ago. A non-gaming facility, a fully integrated resort. Somebody's got to do it in UAE. In Ras Al Khaimah, just north of Dubai, about 45 minutes north of Dubai.
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Glenn Haussman31:12
That would be amazing. It's good. We're excited. So whatever you do, please don't get a poker room in that hotel when you open it, because I won't be working anymore. I'll just be playing. One chair with a brass plaque with your name on it, reserved.
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Brian Gullbrants31:33
I love that. So what do you think is coming next? Right now, I'm feeling like we're in the phase of sports and music. You think about EDM and nightclubs were really huge, and still there's a few that are fantastic. Electric Daisy Carnival is massive every single year. But residencies and entertainment have really taken off. We found a groove with residencies.
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Glenn Haussman32:12
There have been many different rumors about who's doing what. It's not going across the street from us. I think basketball will be right behind it. I think it's special events and unique events. Having the only golf course and 129 acres out back in the backyard is a pretty cool little feature that we have. It's cool that you decided to keep it instead of getting rid of it.
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Brian Gullbrants32:36
One day at a time. Right now, it's serving us well, and we're activating as much as we can. Our theater, our podcast studio, running race cars down the middle of the casino. We want to take risk. We want to continue to push the envelope. That's how you think about the place. What more can we do? What more can we give the guest?
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Glenn Haussman33:10
I don't think any city in America in the last 20 years has done more for its reputation and its marketing than Las Vegas. In 2019, I did 18 keynote speeches in Vegas. It seemed like every booking I got was in Vegas, which I'm not offended by. I was like, 'Yeah, I'll take it.' It's absolutely amazing what the city has done, from the convention center to the reinvestment. That's what the city does better than any city in America: they reinvest. The resorts, the hotels, the restaurants, the entertainment reinvest in the product, which helps all of Vegas. I don't think there's a more competitive marketplace in our industry than the Las Vegas Strip. There's 150,000 guest rooms on one street.
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Brian Gullbrants34:11
To watch and follow anybody we want to, we want to be way out ahead as far as we can and keep doing things that nobody else has ever done.
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Glenn Haussman34:17
So who do you consider your market today?
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Brian Gullbrants34:22
Everybody that's in Las Vegas. Everybody. This is our market. Our competitive set... I'm sorry, customer. Anybody that walks in the door. Anybody that wants to pay the price.
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Glenn Haussman34:36
So then let me ask you this: how are you thinking about different psychographics? Because men and women in their 60s behave a lot differently with purchases and gambling habits than people in their 20s and 30s.
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Brian Gullbrants34:48
I think the demographic in Las Vegas, especially for us, has lowered since the pandemic. The average age is skewing lower. We're doing more to attract that younger demographic. They don't want that experience. Other people do. So they go to Delilah, and at midnight we turn down the lights, bring out candles, put on a DJ, run hip hop and bottle service, and we turn it into a nightlife experience that is one of the most gorgeous experiences you'll see anywhere on the planet. It's taking a nice restaurant experience that has live music seven nights a week and turning it into a nightlife experience. So it has two roles. But you continue to see our core customer, the high-end players that are in our Tower Suites, that have the money, they've arrived, they've achieved everything in their careers and their lives, and they love this place. It's a collection of the right people.
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Glenn Haussman36:12
They go back and have conversational currency at the water cooler or whoever they're talking to back in Kansas and say, 'Yeah, we stayed at Wynn.' That's great. And then you have the tower product for the more rarified guest in that five-star designation, and a villa product for the types of guests that don't hang out with me.
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Brian Gullbrants36:28
We love you. We love all our guests, especially the villa guests.
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Anthony Melur36:36
I'm here, sir. I'm just listening. It's true. When somebody says, 'Oh, I went to Vegas and I stayed at Wynn,' you go, 'Oh, you stayed at Wynn? You're so lucky.' You have that reputation, and it's been cultivated every day. I walk into that hotel and I try really hard to find something wrong, and I can't.
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Glenn Haussman37:11
The ceiling, it looks like it's brand new. It looks like it's been cleaned every single day since it's been there. It's just fabulous what you've been able to do to keep that bar, because that's a high bar to do every single day, 24/7, with the amount of people that are actually going through the property, the amount of people that are actually using the building. It still looks like the plastic just came off.
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Brian Gullbrants37:37
It's a commitment, and it's not me, it's our team. We have a high dusting team. We have four guys that all they do on the overnight is get on scissor lifts and go to the ceiling and clean the AC vents and the valance. The little thing he's talking about drives me crazy when the fleets aren't correct. Even the back of the house is clean. Our guests pay a lot of money to come here, and they expect the place to look new, they expect to have fun, they expect to be recognized. We deliver, and it's our team that does that day in and day out. They're awesome. They're freaking amazing.
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Glenn Haussman38:24
I was talking to a manager in the poker room, and I said to her, her uniform or outfit was perfect. I said, 'Wow, everything's so always clean.' She said, 'It's cleaner in the back of the house. It's just as clean in the back of the house as in the front of the house.' She said, 'The reason I work here is not only everybody's nice, it's I'm a clean freak and everything is clean.' She belongs here.
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Brian Gullbrants38:47
That's fantastic. It's also really beautiful back of house as well. So you got to come out for the WPT $15 million guaranteed poker tournament. World Poker Tour, World Championship.
G
Glenn Haussman39:10
I will be there. You're doing all my buy-in too?
B
Brian Gullbrants39:16
No, I believe there's a tournament sometime when I'm there this week, a small tournament that I'll probably play in at Wynn. We are running tournaments every single day. Some of the big tournaments now are actually qualifying for WPT.
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Glenn Haussman39:32
How do you think about the gaming floor in general? What makes it work most efficient and getting people to want to put some money in?
B
Brian Gullbrants39:44
A collection of amazing people and amazing teams that work here. There's a slot team, there's a table games team, there's a marketing team, our hosts and our player development leaders, there's an events team that creates crazy events for our guests. Now, 60% of what we do is non-gaming. But on the gaming side, it's so much fun. It's so exciting. I get hourly updates on where we are. It's exciting. We're gambling every day on the other side of the business, on the other side of the table. It's a lot of fun. But it really is our guys that are getting creative and going, 'Okay, we need this new product. What if we move this over here?' We see machines doing really well, and I'm like, 'Why don't we have more of those?' 'Okay, we'll get some more.' Now they're all doing well. I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, we hit something really cool.' I said, 'Does anybody else have this in the market?' 'No.' I said, 'Don't tell anybody what we're doing. This is amazing.' Those are the kind of things you want to offer your customers too, that they can't get it anywhere else. We want to be the first.
A
Anthony Melur41:10
When they're going about to... people still smoke inside here. But do all those things that we were taught as young hospitality professionals, it needs to move into gaming, not just non-gaming.
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Brian Gullbrants41:24
Anthony, the highest level of gaming is hyper-competitive in Vegas. Things like F1 really give you another opportunity to attract those bigger players, gamblers from around the world. Give them another reason to come in, another reason to experience your beautiful resort. Those destination events are very helpful for getting that gambler that you all really try to get. If you have one or two or three of those, I don't know what they're called anymore, they have fun for another reason or excuse to come to Vegas. F1 is going to be a great reason to come. We're probably going to be introduced to customers that have never been to Vegas before. Las Vegas as a destination will be put on a global stage. The LVCVA, Steve Hill, they did an amazing job getting the Formula 1 group here. They kind of took them from casino to casino. We were the first ones to sign up and say, 'Amen, we love this idea.' Our brothers and sisters down the street all said yes, and we now have a Formula 1 race coming to Las Vegas. I think it really puts us... they're going to broadcast this to over 150 different countries.
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Glenn Haussman43:10
Delivering that incredible Wynn service and magic.
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Brian Gullbrants43:13
The entertainment we're bringing in, the DJs, the after parties are going to go till 7 or 8 in the morning. The official hangover brunch will be here on Sunday, because I figured they'll go to bed at 7 and wake up at 1 and need a late checkout. It'll be great. Bloody Marys for all my friends. I absolutely love it.
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Glenn Haussman43:36
Before we wrap up, I hate to depart without talking about maybe some of your sustainability issues that you're going through here, trying to make sure that you're doing the right thing by the universe. So how are you thinking about sustainability? Particularly, we all hear in the news, water is an issue out here.
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Brian Gullbrants43:56
Water is a huge issue in the Southwest. The state also suggested people get rid of grass, and they're doing tax breaks on that sort of thing. The lovely little green patch we have out back, the golf course, we actually own the rights to the water table underneath. All that's done by water table water. It's everybody doing their part. We have a division. We're going to be net zero by 2050. We'll be peaking at 2030 and reversing the process, CO2 emissions by 2030. Renewable energy, 50% of our energy will be from renewable sources by 2030. Some huge commitments that we're grinding on every day and making sure that we're doing the right things, whether it's solar or battery storage.
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Glenn Haussman45:10
That's great. I think it's so essential. If it's done right, it sounds to me that it's a good investment. There is a real definitive ROI, and it'll actually put the company in a better position financially than if you hadn't gone through all of those efforts.
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Brian Gullbrants45:26
100%. It's not only the right thing to do, but other companies that want to do business with us want to do business with anybody in the hospitality industry that is serious about making sure that everybody's making strides and moving in the right direction. Believe it or not, we're going to have our best group convention segment year this year and next year. We're pacing way ahead. It's really important that you're doing the right things, because you're not going to get the business if you're not paying attention.
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Glenn Haussman46:11
How do you keep yourself and your team fresh so they continue to see those things instead of becoming kind of blind to it because they've been looking at it so long?
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Brian Gullbrants46:20
I think helping them with different perspectives through messaging, through daily messages, through our pre-shifts, our quarterly management meetings. Making sure everybody's aligned every quarter. We get all 1,400 managers in a room, split in half, two sessions, and talk about what's important and how we need to be looking at things differently every single day. Because if you stand still, your competitors are on your heels. Everybody's trying to knock the guy off the top. We always want to be there. We want to push, push, push.
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Glenn Haussman46:53
Beautiful. Anthony, got anything else for this gentleman?
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Anthony Melur47:11
Using words like 'AI' that people are going to be worried about a week or two or three weeks from now, and thinking about getting ahead of everyone. That hyper-care that you guys are famous for really resonates.
B
Brian Gullbrants47:20
Listen, it rests on the shoulders of our ladies and gentlemen. Our brand rests on them. They're at the top of the food chain. I love these people. Hey Anthony, what time's dinner tomorrow night?
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Anthony Melur47:31
What time do you want it to be? I'm ready. Six o'clock, that way I can play some poker after.
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Brian Gullbrants47:37
Let's do it. I'm ready. 6:00, 6:30, whatever you want to do. Thank you. I look forward to it. Should we invite Glenn with us, or are you staying here?
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Glenn Haussman47:44
No, dude, don't stay somewhere else. Check out of wherever you're going. Stay here. I got a nice room for you.
A
Anthony Melur47:52
I gotta call my friend Shannon and tell her.
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Brian Gullbrants47:55
I know Shannon really well.
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Glenn Haussman48:11
Thank you so much, guys. Appreciate you guys coming out.
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Brian Gullbrants48:13
Thank you, Brian. I really appreciate it. This has been absolutely fantastic.
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Glenn Haussman48:16
All right, Brian Gullbrants, president of Wynn. Anthony, let's wrap up real quick. We can say goodbye to him off the air. Anything else you want to say?
A
Anthony Melur48:27
Well, we definitely see you tomorrow for dinner. I'm really excited. I'm coming out first thing in the morning. Thank you so much. It's always been kind of my goal to actually meet you and to meet the person behind the crown. I've met everybody in this industry. I haven't met anyone running that property, and it's always been something I've been interested in talking to that person. So I look forward to our dinner tomorrow as well.
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Brian Gullbrants48:47
I'm looking forward to it as well.
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Glenn Haussman48:49
All right, everybody, thank you so much for tuning into another episode of No Vacancy Live. Remember guys, you've got one life, so blaze on and be kind to yourself. All right, everybody.