PHOENIX — Anyone scrolling through the social media feeds of the Talking Stick Resort and Casino near Scottsdale this month would never know the property had suffered through a six-week shutdown late last summer. Business looked to be going completely as usual.
The Talking Stick’s Twitter feed touted group yoga sessions and spa packages for patrons in town for Cactus League spring training games. The property’s Instagram page showed stacks of snapshots of smiling patrons — dipping in the pool, soaking in the spa, trying their luck on the casino floor. A poster calling herself shouldireallybeplaying peeked from behind a tall stack of chips.
“Back on the grind!” she declared in a March 13 picture.
The Talking Stick ground to a halt Aug. 11, after monsoon rainwater got into the area containing the property’s main and backup electrical generators, reportedly knocking out the distribution box and cutting power.
At about 2 a.m. that day, reports said, staff, guests and casino patrons — 600 people in all — were evacuated, some during a poker tournament.
The Las Vegas Advisor reported that the closure pre-empted five tournaments total, including the Arizona State Poker Championship, which some players had paid $2,200 to enter.
“Oh man,” a poster named Monstrr wrote on a Phoenix Reddit page. “Never thought I’d feel bad for a casino. Such a tough situation.”
A spokesman for Talking Stick, owned by the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and on the Salt River Reservation near Loop 101 and Indian Bend Road, didn’t respond to several phone calls and an email seeking comment for this story. Officials were similarly close-mouthed during the shutdown, communicating mostly through posts on the hotel-casino’s website and Facebook.
In posts after the initial shutdown, Talking Stick officials said they hoped to reopen after a week later, on Aug. 19. That didn’t happen; the storm damage was evidently worse than assessed.
Officials posted that more equipment was necessary to make repairs and get the hotel-casino presentable for guests. They gave no reopening date.
Officials would later tell azfamily.com that the power source was specially made and had to be manufactured.
During the closure, Talking Stick worked to accommodate patrons, sending them to redeem slot machine coupons at Casino Arizona, the tribally run sister property. Meanwhile, The Arizona Republic reported, casino workers said in Facebook posts that they were paid as usual.
Nevertheless, several early September events, including concerts, were rescheduled and some were canceled, including its Release pool part series featuring a show by DJ Diesel, better known as Shaquille O’Neal, the former National Basketball Association star. Shows by rock musicians Burton Cummings and Daughtry were rescheduled.
Talking Stick had initially said on Facebook that it would stay closed all of September, but reopened Sept. 24.
“We’ve had 300 employees and contractors working 24-7 getting this place ready to go,” Talking Stick spokesman Ramon Martinez told KNXV-TV, Channel 15, in Phoenix, after the reopening. “The ground had been saturated so the water just flooded in — and our power distribution boxes and sources and breakers — are in a basement. So we had 8 feet of water that totally destroyed that unit.”
Martinez also told KNXV that hotel management and engineering staff was meeting and working to prevent a similar power outage.
“It’s going to be fixed, definitely,” he said.
Because the Arizona Department of Gaming doesn’t break out financial results for the state’s 24 tribal casinos individually, it’s unclear how much money the closure cost Talking Stick. The shutdown didn’t seem to impede the market. Arizona’s tribal casinos posted $26.9 million in revenue in the third quarter ended Sept. 30, a 2 percent increase from a year earlier, the department said.
When Talking Stick reopened, the hotel-casino held a weeklong celebration for customers, giving away $150,000 in cash and prizes, including two Polaris Slingshot three-wheeled roadsters.
Because he didn’t have the Talking Stick’s financial data, Alan Meister, a California economist who studies tribal gaming, said he couldn’t specifically address the shutdown’s possible effects. Nevertheless, he said closures of any length are troublesome for any business.
“You worry about the short-term effects, but you also worry about the long-term effects,” Meister said. “While you’re shut down, you’re losing revenue but you’re also losing customers. Where are they going to go instead?”
Added Meister, “If (Talking Stick) had to close down for a month, they’re losing gaming revenue, they’re losing entertainment revenue, if they had to close the hotel, but they’re losing hotel and lodging revenue. All of that can affect gaming revenue. It’s all interrelated and integrated.”
Valerie Spicer, co-founder of Trilogy Group, a consulting group with expertise in tribal gaming and offices in Chandler, Arizona and Oklahoma City, called Talking Stick an important casino in Arizona’s tribal market and agreed with Meister that closures can unsettle patronages.
“It’s just tragic, because you have continuity in a business and then, all of a sudden, you’re shut down then you’re shut down for a month and you’re dealing with things you didn’t expect to deal with,” she said. “But that’s what risk management is all about and why it’s in place, so you can address and issues that impact you and overcome them.”
By all accounts, Talking Stick has bounced back. Meister said he visited the Talking Stick for a conference this year and found it looking fine.
“The facility is beautiful,” he said. “I saw no lingering effects of any damage or any shutdown.”
Follow Matthew Crowley on Twitter @copyjockey
