Every Bravo reality TV show season has a Vegas episode.
Who could forget the Magic Mike Live meltdown of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills? Or the Discopussy divorce party of Vanderpump Rules? Somehow, Vegas always finds itself in the background of Bravo’s biggest moments, and its stars have warmed to our strange little city like no other place.
Lisa Vanderpump has expanded her culinary empire here in recent years, and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills favorite Erika Jayne now helms her own Strip residency at the House of Blues. The names of reality TV stars grace resort marquees.
Considering all that, Las Vegas hosting its first BravoCon—an annual three-day fest for fans of the reality TV empire and its iconic shows—was, perhaps, inevitable ... as was the tea-spilling spectacle that ensued last month.
Kimberly Faver has a theory on why reality TV stars love Las Vegas so much. She’s just struggling to voice it over the cavalcade of women chanting “BravoCon” down the halls of the Caesars Forum.
“I say the word fandom a lot, but this is what I’m talking about,” Faver says, waving a hand at the passing procession of Bravoholics double-fisting their 9 a.m. mimosas.
As senior vice president of content and talent partnerships for Bravo’s parent company NBCUniversal, Faver has seen the TV channel evolve with the times, thriving in its tenets of beauty, fashion, food and pop culture, occasionally moving the needle of America in the process — not unlike how Vegas has been known to do.
“Las Vegas, to me, is just a judgment-free zone,” she says. “People come here to escape. They come here to have fun. For our shows, I think they want to capture our talent experiencing new things in a place that they feel comfortable, and I think they feel very comfortable here. It’s the most welcoming city.”
An estimated 30,000 people traveled to the Strip for BravoCon November 3-5, and nothing quite compares to the gust of energy they brought with them.
Fans loitered in line with full faces of makeup and sequined dresses before 9 a.m. Others rocked their favorite Bravo taglines on their tees — “Who gon’ check me, boo?” by Real Housewives of Atlanta’s Shereé Whitfield being a favorite, though the fan who sported the “Bravo Is My Roman Empire” deserves a clap.
Even Caesars Forum’s distinctive pillarless ballrooms got a facelift for the weekend. BravoCon sponsor Wayfair designed living room sets of each Real Housewives season for fans to lounge around in and roleplay their multi-million dollar lives. State Farm constructed a beach day getaway setup in honor of Summer House. And fans could book massages at a Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip-themed bungalow retreat.
A Bravo Land Museum by Freevee also drew considerable lines, with folks eager to capture photos of themselves reenacting the iconic table-flip from Real Housewives of New Jersey and gossiping in the infamous “drama alley” from the SUR restaurant from Vanderpump Rules.
You couldn’t escape Bravo’s intellectual properties, not even in the restrooms, where mirrors were branded with famous taglines from Bravolebrities and each bathroom stall included a trivia question. But honestly, who would want to? BravoCon was so delightfully meta, so scathingly aware of its audience and its IPs, that the thought of it representing itself in any other way would be off-brand. The ComicCon of reality TV is stranger than fiction, as it should be.
“People love the aspirational nature of Bravo. That’s why the brands gravitate towards us, too … but it still feels very good. It feels still within reach,” Faver says. “I think people see themselves in these reality stars, and they root for them. It’s real life, souped-up a little bit for them.”
Robyne Cody and Carrie Williams, twins I find twerking on the Gay Shark mascot from Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live, definitely share that sentiment.
“It’s a better soap opera than Days of Our Lives,” Williams says of their Bravo shows.
It’s just after 10 a.m. when we cross paths, and these twins still appear to be buzzing from their first BravoCon. They file through the highlights of the weekend in quick succession. Last night, it was clubbing with a group of Real Housewives at Omnia. Today, they’re booking it to a panel with the cast of Below Deck. Having driven all the way from Texas, they’re keen on catching every moment.
“Our mom got us hooked on this stuff. She’s no longer with us but we know she’s here in spirit,” Williams says, exchanging a smile with her sister.
“We don’t like the drama, but we like people being real,” she adds. “Our favorite part is when they go ‘I didn’t say that’ and they roll back the footage.”
“The receipts are the best,” they reply in unison.
BravoCon’s first panel of the morning is always dedicated to Ask Andy, a shade-filled talk show hour for which fans pack the pews of the ballroom like Sunday service. For one round, Andy Cohen co-hosts the large-scale chat with Flipping Out designer Jeff Lewis, serving thirsty fans their morning tea like two sassy gay uncles on vacation.
Risky games of unscreened Q&A roulette ensue, but Cohen, like his persona on Watch What Happens Live, is a master moderator, knowing how and when to avert a messy question without offending any one Bravolebrity. Fans from around the world offer up questions over the hour, and by the end, Cohen encourages them to take a look around and make some connections.
“It’s like a destination wedding,” Cohen tells the crowd. “You are going to make friends.”
“Just don’t get pregnant,” Lewis warns.
“Or do,” Cohen adds.
With that, we’re released into the wild. And like Cohen promised, it’s incredibly easy to make BravoCon friends. “What’s your show?” is the universal hello.
“This has been a great weekend. We have been so pleasantly surprised with how organized and well run it’s been,” says Las Vegas attendee Greg Snyder. “I’ve worked in service operations my whole career, and these things are usually a sh*tshow.”
Towering well over six feet tall, in a T-shirt that reads “Real Men Watch Bravo,” Snyder is something of a unicorn here. The 44-year-old looks more like a member of a security detail than a Bravoholic, but he’s the real deal, and he attributes his newfound fandoms to his wife, Kim Adler.
“It wasn’t so much a show as an experience,” he says. “She was watching Real Housewives of New Jersey, and I would always be reading the book or on my iPad or whatever. I’m sitting there, not paying attention, then I hear Margaret [Josephs] say to someone ‘Your mouth looks like a monkey’s butthole.’ I dropped my iPad, and was like, ‘What did she just say? Can we play that back?’”
Adler, a Bravo fan since the early seasons of the Real Housewives of Orange County, hooked him, line and sinker, with Vanderpump Rules and Below Deck. Now, here he was at BravoCon, stirring up drama at panel Q&As, boldly asking Vanderpump Rules’ Tom Sandoval the messiest of questions and being lauded as a weekend hero by attendees.
“I actually lived in West Hollywood when Vanderpump Rules was first starting and I didn’t know anything about it. When she introduced it to me, I’m seeing places that I knew … and I’m about the same age as some of those folks. I really connected with that,” Snyder says. “With Below Deck, I worked service my whole career, so seeing … the workers behind the scenes, but then also that aspirational life of the people, the charter going astray. This is the life I live, but this is the life I want. That juxtaposition was really cool.”
As locals, Snyder and Adler view Vegas’ BravoCon as a source of pride and a no-brainer.
“I don’t think there is a better fit for where BravoCon should be than Las Vegas. I mean, we’re the entertainment capital of the world here,” Adler says. “And a lot of the Housewives and other Bravo celebrities now are really occupying the entertainment space. I hope they continue to have BravoCon here in Vegas.”
Snyder eagerly nods as we wait in line for the next panel. “Vegas is a destination for anybody in the world on a regular Tuesday,” he says. “You bring something that brings so much joy to so many people here and you have the hotel space, you have the convention space, you have everything to support it, I think it’s a win-win all around.”
BravoCon was indeed a boon for Las Vegas. Over that weekend, Cohen taped several episodes of BravoCon Live With Andy Cohen at Paris Theater, which have since been aired on the streaming service Peacock, to its nearly 30 million paid subscribers.
It’s exhilarating to see Vegas in the spotlight on such a grand-scale, especially after always being the backdrop. Next year’s BravoCon is still months and months away, but our city has certainly proved it’s got what it takes to be a Bravolebrity of its own.
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