-From unions to unity now.

Creators of Bob Marley Hope Road say the new show at Mandalay Bay brings people together with live music and immersive story telling.

You don't buy seats to this show.

Instead, guests move through multiple rooms and are meant to feel as if they're a part of a party celebrating the Jamaican icon's life and legacy.

Scott Givens, who's produced live events for global summits, theme park parades, and numerous Olympic games, is a co-executive producer of Bob Marley Hope Road.

And Nevada Week sat down with him to learn more.

Okay, so Bob Marley Hope Road is described as a "groundbreaking entertainment experience in Las Vegas."

What makes it groundbreaking?

-Gosh, I'll start with Las Vegas has amazing entertainment and such a long history, so being described as groundbreaking is a big deal.

-Yeah.

-And I think we are really unique, because it's a novel format.

You come in and you're standing.

And you begin in one room, and a lot of times guests think that's the only room, but then we take you through six more experiences over the course of the night.

We move you through the scenery and the music that Bob Marley created.

-That doesn't exist anywhere else in Las Vegas right now.

-It doesn't.

There's some-- there's some great standing shows, and there's some amazing things you can see in town-- -And a lot of immersive exhibits.

-And a lot of immersive, but this kind of combination of having-- We've got 41 cast members that are part of the performance.

And, you know, being able to interact with all these casts and have them carry you through the journey is a unique experience.

-When you talk about standing, that's an important, big decision, because there is a large clientele in Las Vegas who wants to sit and watch something.

-Yeah.

A lot of times when people think show, they think show, sit, don't participate.

We wanted to turn that around and say, no, no, you are a participant.

You're actually a performer and a participant in the show.

And you can opt in.

Our cast will invite you into the conversation, invite you into the performance.

And if you pass, they'll just kind of gently move along and invite the next person.

But if you engage, they'll pull you in and it's really wonderful.

So you can go through and become a participant.

We do have seating for people's comfort.

So some people do want to sit.

So we sit about 20% of our audience, and any one room can have a seat and take a little rest.

And what we find is people want to do that particularly toward the end, but they get their choice.

-Also perhaps groundbreaking, I'm not sure, you talked off camera with me about the ability to have three shows running at one time.

Explain how that works.

-Well, the whole idea is we wanted you to be in this intimate, immersed environment of Bob Marley, right?

So you come in with 100 to 150 guests in that experience, and but the way we could make this work in a large production show in Las Vegas is we actually can run three at one time.

So every 30 minutes, we can start a new show.

And as we're building our resiliency, and we're building up to that.

We have some operational things to get ready, but we believe this fall, we'll be running every 30 minutes.

And that means there's three shows in the venue at one time.

-And the show itself is 75 minutes.

-Correct.

The show's 75 minutes.

So all three are 75 minutes.

And you travel with one group of cast.

You get to know them, and they go through the journey with you.

And then they come back around and grab another audience, and they go through the journey with them.

-There is a local entertainment reporter, John Katsilometes, has been here for years, is kind of the go-to entertainment reporter.

And he called this a bellwether for other Strip properties.

They're watching to see how this goes.

What do you think of that?

-I respect John and his perspective on it.

It's a big risk when you do a project that doesn't have an immediate-- Lots of people like to copy.

And when folks said, What is this like?

It's not like anything else.

And so when you try to jump out and do something really unique, you kind of jump into the void.

And so I think we're in that place where we're proving the model works.

We're seeing guests love it.

Our guest reviews and guest experience are just through the roof because it is so different and it is so authentic and high energy, because I don't know where else you can be this close to a performer and dancing.

There is no wall between you and the performer, and that's just really reading through our customer experience.

-So the press release about this mentions your unwavering commitment to Bob Marley's vision.

How did you determine that vision?

-You know, we started with a partnership with the family, because Cedella Marley has been our partner.

And I talk to Cedella every week.

We had questions.

We sent her creative.

She approves.

-She's Bob Marley's daughter.

-She's Bob Marley's eldest daughter, and she looks after his name and likeness and musical legacy.

And Cedella, you know, did everything from help us pick the paint color on the VW Bus that's in our show, because she was in the tour bus as a young child with her father.

And so we really wanted to have that authenticity to represent the legacy of the family well.

And then we also-- And I'll give you the truth.

It was Cedella's idea to go to Jamaica and cast.

Half of our cast is from Jamaica.

Some were Jamaican Americans, but some are directly from Kingston.

And they just bring an authenticity and a passion for this music and for Jamaica, in general, that is live, alive, and well here in Vegas.

-It's wild to think that a bunch of people from Jamaica have now moved to Las Vegas for this.

-Well, you can't-- The Jamaican accent, the patois that they speak and the passion they have for the music, we can't fake that.

And so they bring that authenticity, and they're cast from all over the world that are part of the show.

But the spoken roles, the singing roles, the principals are dominantly Jamaican, and they just, they give us such authenticity that you just can't beat.

-When you talk about committing to Bob Marley's vision, and certainly he has his daughter, but he has many other children.

And I wonder, I mean, isn't that subjective what his vision is?

Might they all have conflicting ideas?

-Yeah.

They all get along, and they all help.

So Bob's three children with his wife, Rita, were part of the show.

Stephen helped record music for us, because there's kind of, the music has been re-orchestrated.

The BPM, the beats per minute, are sped up, and it's much more of a party and dance hall vibe.

And Stephen's recordings are all over that.

Ziggy helped us with music choice and music selection and comments on some of the murals that you see outside in Trench Town.

He helped us with some of the creative, but Cedella was the day-to-day manager.

And and all three of them really had universally accepted ideas of how they wanted to represent their father's legacy.

-Was there any conflict ever, or is there an example you can provide of when you may have proposed something and they said, no, he wouldn't have liked that?

-You know, no, there was really no conflict between the three.

But there were things that we didn't know.

We went to Jamaica, we studied.

I took the creative team.

We, you know, talked to so many people, but there were things that we didn't represent at first in the creative.

So there's a mural now in Trench Town of Rita, and there's a mural of Haile Selassie, the king of kings, the Ethiopian king that is part of the Rastafarian belief system.

Those weren't in our original vision.

Not that we didn't think they were important, but the family just said, These are very important.

They need to be in.

So they helped us prioritize and make sure that we treated things in the appropriate way that would be consistent with Bob's beliefs.

-And when you talk about Rastafarian beliefs, there are some that make me think maybe Las Vegas wouldn't be the right fit for that when we're talking about, you know, opposition to materialism and perhaps excessive use of anything.

I mean, that's partly what Las Vegas is.

-But Las Vegas is the entertainment capital of the world.

And here's what I would say: You know, we named this show Hope Road for two reasons.

One, Bob wrote most of his music and recorded at 56 Hope Road in Kingston.

So that's his-- that's his home, and it's still there.

It's a museum these days.

But we just think that word "hope" is a really special word, and it's really what Bob stood for, hope and love and kind of a broad embrace of humanity.

We think that belongs in Vegas, and folks are having a good time with that.

-Stephen and Ziggy, their daughters are both DJs in this.

-They have-- They are DJs that are part of the show.

So two of Bob Molly's grandkids-- That's how involved the family is.

Two of Bob Molly's grandkids are in our cast and are part of the performance, and it's really, really fun, and they just bring a spirit and a zest.

I would say it's equal to the rest of our cast, but having the authenticity of a couple of Bob Marley's grandkids is really fun.

-Bob Marley's wife, Rita, I read that she had a private moment with the family ahead of the opening.

Were you there for that?

-I brought her into the room, Rita and the family, and I let them have their moment, because private is, it's really for her.

And we have an experience when you come in that is a photo experience that is kind of our queue, but it takes you from where Bob was born at Nine Mile in Jamaica, 256 Hope Road, and it's photos and albums and different things on his journey.

And I will say it was very emotional for the family, because she was part of those memories.

-You've said that you want this to inspire people.

What do you want them to be inspired to do?

-You know, we say "Be moved by Marley" as our tagline.

And, you know, and that has a couple meanings.

Of course, you move through the show, but Bob Marley stood for so many things, and we do want people to be emotionally moved by his message and his music.

And I think one of the things I learned in my journey, great shows can live on multiple levels.

Some people can come in and just love the music and sing along and just have a great time, and then others can really be emotionally touched by what you're doing.

And we hope a lot of people get that second part.

-Okay.

Scott Givens, FiveCurrents, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you very much for coming to our home, Bob Marley Hope Road.