Hard Rock Café Las Vegas

The Hard Rock Café Las Vegas signage is located in the center of The Neon Museum’s event space, overlooking the Neon Boneyard.

The Hard Rock Café Las Vegas debuted in 1990, on the corner of Harmon and Paradise. The property’s signage is the first large neon guitar in the franchise’s history, modeled after the custom-made Gibson Les-Paul guitar played by Pete Townshend, guitarist of the rock band The Who. Manufactured by YESCO (Young Electric Sign Company), the guitar measures 82-feet tall and 24-feet wide, and consists of approximately 4,110 feet of neon tubing and over 700 individual neon units. This signage features a partially animated design, using motion and light to depict dynamic action, in this case, the throbbing of the neon tubing at the guitar’s neck creates an optical illusion in which its strings are vibrating. Colors used on the sign include Ruby Red, Clear Red 3500K White, and Yellow Gold II.

The planned Hard Rock Resort, set to open in 2027 on the former site of the Mirage Hotel & Casino, will be constructed in the shape of a giant, 700-foot tall guitar. This themed structure will effectively blend architecture and signage into one form, featuring brightly lit “strings” and floor-to-ceiling glass panes. A similar but smaller, 450-foot tall guitar shaped Hard Rock Resort opened in Florida in 2019.