Crying all the way to the cold storage room

Will the horror of this economic crisis never end? Latest victim of the crunching and austerity is The Liberace Museum in Las Vegas is shutting its doors.

It used to attract half a million visitors a year, but not so many come any more.

Actually, it's not entirely the credit crunch, and more that Liberace was of his time, and fewer people are interested:

“We really started pushing the idea of bling, and Liberace was the first person who was really doing bling,” said Jeffrey P. Koep, the chairman of the Liberace Foundation and dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. “He had the big rings. He had the look that you see the kids doing now that’s very popular.”

That's the sort of idea a grandmother would come up with - "you wear big rings, don't you, dear? Look, this man had big rings, too" - so it's not surprising it flopped.

Perhaps they should have tried going with being insanely closeted, or launching lawsuits when people simply tell the truth about you. That's quite popular these days, too. Maybe that would bring an audience.

The tumbling numbers, combined with terrible investment decisions, have brought the attraction to the last rhinestone:

Billy Vassiliadis, the head of the advertising agency that represents the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, said the loss of the museum “was a shame, especially for us older folks.” But, he said, Las Vegas, like Liberace, has always been about reinventing itself.

“We have to keep refreshing Las Vegas,” he said. “Thousands of people turn 21 every day. Who knows, maybe we’ll have a Lady Gaga museum in 10 years.”

The sad thing is, he's probably not wide of the mark with that one.

Cassandra ends up having the last laugh.