Luxor's Sky Beam Is Getting Color for the First Time

The Sky Beam runs on 39 xenon lamps, each a 7,000 watt bulb, housed in a fixture at the top of the pyramid. When Luxor opened, the hotel marketed it as the most powerful man made light in the world, supposedly visible from an airplane hundreds of miles out.

That kind of power costs real money. Early estimates put the annual bill for running the beam at full strength around $1 million, and since 2008 Luxor has run it at roughly half strength to cut that cost. Through all of it, the beam has stayed white for 33 years, while the rest of the Strip skyline changed around it.

According to Vital Vegas, the red test is tied to a beam rental for a specific client, though the outlet does not name who booked it. That detail matters. It suggests color was not the plan on its own, it came out of a paid booking, and now that the hardware exists to shift color, the door is open to using it again for other events.

The same report notes MGM is separately looking at a light show for the hotel's atrium, the open interior space under the glass pyramid. None of this is confirmed by MGM as of this writing, so the timeline is soft. Testing is happening in a warehouse right now, and Vital Vegas expects the colored beam to actually go up over the Strip within the next couple of weeks.

The Sky Beam has faded into the background of the Strip skyline over the last decade, especially since the Sphere gave people a much bigger reason to look up at night. A colored beam, even as a one off test, is the kind of small change that gives the Luxor pyramid a reason to be a photo stop again instead of something you drive past on the way to Mandalay Bay.

If you are on the Strip in the next few weeks, look up at the pyramid after dark. Nothing is official, MGM has not put a date on it, and the first use of color is reportedly tied to someone else's private booking rather than a nightly show. But if the test lands while you are in town, you would be seeing something that has not happened at the Luxor in over three decades.