Ten Interesting Facts about the Bellagio Fountains

The Bellagio Fountains are set in front of the Bellagio hotel and casino in Las Vegas. They are a vast musical fountain that features an outstanding water performance that boasts both music and lights. It is one of the most iconic water features of its time and has even been featured in Steven Soderbergh’s amazing Ocean’s Eleven film.

We have been lucky enough to visit Las Vegas, and have; therefore, seen the Bellagio Fountains in all its glory. However, we didn’t really know that much about the fountain. So, we did some research into it, and put this article together detailing some of its different facts.

1. The Bellagio Fountain was originally built in 1998 for the grand opening of the Bellagio hotel. Steve Wynn, the original owner of the Bellagio wanted to create a free attraction that would not only be the biggest and best on the strip, but also the most romantic. The fountain has managed to tick all these boxes in our opinion, as not only do couples get married in front of the fountain, but people travel from all over the world to specifically see it.

2. The fountains were created by a small Californian company called WET Design. WET Design is considered the fore-leaders in dancing fountains; however, they had never undertaken such a large project before. They started designing the fountain in 1995, and soon realised that they would have to create a brand new technology to bring the fountains to life. The technologies they were using were so cutting edge that they were not 100% sure they were going to work.

3. The fountains are set in an eight and half acre manmade lake, which is serviced by a freshwater well. The well was already on the property, as it was originally used to irrigate a golf course that used to be in the Bellagio Fountains place years before the hotel and casino was built.

4. There are four types of nozzles used in the fountain; Oarsmen, Shooters, Super Shooters and Extreme Shooters. The oarsmen control the direction of the jets in a spherical motion; these were built specifically for the Bellagio and are now used in dancing fountains all around the world. Shooters basically shoot the water upwards into the sky. Super Shooters and Extreme Shooters do the same thing; however, they can blast the water up to 73m and 140m high respectively.

5. The Bellagio Fountains consist of over 1,200 individual fountains. In fact, it has; 798 Shooters, 208 Oarsman, 192 Super Shooters and 16 Extreme Shooters. It also has over 5,000 white lights that illuminate the show at night and a fog machine to add ambience.

6. Each individual fountain can be programmed – This allows WET Designs to program the fountains to perform different displays, to different songs. These can often take months to design, and have been performed to some of the most popular songs in the world. This includes our favourite Beatles song; Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

7. 30 engineers care for the Bellagio Fountains daily. The Bellagio employs 30 different engineers, with various different backgrounds to maintain and operate the fountains daily. They are also all experienced divers, due to their work being undertaken in or under the fountains water.

8. High Winds can cancel the show. If the wind speed gets over 25 miles an hour, then the show is cancelled. This is because it first of all spoils the effects of the show and secondly we result in them losing some of the 22 gallons of water. This show has never been cancelled for technical reasons.

9. The tanks of the Bellagio Fountains are cleaned every couple of weeks with a giant 8 foot wide vacuum cleaner. The Engineers have found; rubbish, coins, wedding rings and even a Catfish in the water.

10. It is rumoured to have cost between $40 and $75 million to design and build. The exact cost of the Bellagio Fountains has never actually been revealed; however, we do know that it went over budget, and is thought to have cost at least $40 million.

If you fancy popping to Las Vegas to check out the Bellagio Fountains for yourself, then the show runs every half an hour between 3.00pm and 7.00pm and every 15 minutes between 7.00pm and 12.00am.