LAS VEGAS — It's almost 3 a.m. at the Tao nightclub on the Strip, and the anthem for the night is still blaring: "Party like a rock, party like a rock star."
Photographer Hew Burney, high on energy drinks, cuts through the dancing crowd with the practiced stealth of a running back spotting holes in a defensive line. He snaps pictures of cleavage-baring women who smooch for the camera and tilt half-full bottles of pricey champagne to their lips.
He flits to the next group, but not before tossing out a handful of business cards reading, "That picture you don't remember taking last night. . . . Spyonvegas.com." By the time Burney calls it quits at 4:30 a.m., he's shot 1,400 pictures that will be posted online before most revelers have slept off their hangovers.
The website may masquerade as a "Girls Gone Wild" knockoff, but it's a sophisticated marketing machine that its operators say logs 12 million page views a month, with banner ads from every hot spot in town. It's the brainchild of Ryan Doherty, 31, and Justin Weniger, 26, who have launched five businesses in four years, all tethered to the exploding Vegas night-life scene. Their enterprise, Wendoh Media, also operates a printing business, publishes two magazines and sells VIP passes to nightclubs.
Doherty and Weniger are the new breed of Vegas entrepreneur, finding success in Sin City without stepping foot in a casino. Over the last few years, nightclubs on and near Las Vegas Boulevard have taken on a life of their own, mushrooming from a handful to about 30 today, with two opening next weekend and more in the pipeline. The clubs are considered as vital as a poker room, with gaming companies carving out thousands of square feet for them and erecting huge digital billboard marquees.
The Venetian's Tao restaurant and nightclub raked in more cash than any other restaurant in the country in 2006 with $55 million in sales -- nearly half of that in alcohol -- so it's no surprise that Vegas' robust night life is producing the city's next generation of moguls.
So much cash is flowing into these venues that even the clubs' management companies are branching out. The Light Group, the mastermind behind the Light nightclub at the Bellagio and Jet at the Mirage, is planning three new restaurants, a loft project off the Strip and the Harmon Hotel and Residences at MGM Mirage's $7-billion CityCenter.
