Mandalay Bay renumbering floor associated with Las Vegas shooting

The 32nd floor at Mandalay Bay, strongly associated with the Oct. 1 shooting, is going away.

Mandalay Bay is renumbering floors 31 through 34 as floors 56 through 59, owner MGM Resorts International said Tuesday.

The floor numbers will be changed by the end of the week, the company said.

A shooter used a suite on the 32nd floor to kill 58 people at a country music concert across the street. The floor wing where the shooter’s suite is located is still closed, the company said.

“What MGM wants to do is move on from the tragedy and service customers without ignoring but without calling attention to it,” said Michael McCall, a hospitality professor at Michigan State University. “You don’t want (the 32nd floor) to become a morbid tourist site.”

Michelle Paul, a UNLV professor of psychology, said renumbering the floors makes sense, as it helps set the stage for guests and employees to relate in a new way to the location of the tragedy.

Mandalay Bay is “trying to create new associations [with the floor] and move forward. When you have someone as a guest, you don’t want to put them in a place that has a negative association,” said Paul, who runs The Practice, a mental health clinic offering free services to people affected by the shooting.

The hotel closed the floor in December during the traditionally slow holiday period and reopened it at the beginning of the year.

Unorthodox numbering

The 43-story building had an unorthodox floor numbering system even before the shooting. Mandalay Bay elevators showed stops at floors 1 through 34 and 60 through 63. There was no 40 through 59.

Floors 35 through 39 are managed by the Four Seasons hotel and have a separate elevator.

The Mandalay Bay elevators will now indicate floors 1 through 30 and 56 through 63. The Four Seasons will keep its floor numbers 35 through 39.

The blog Vital Vegas first reported the renumbering.

The shooting, the worst in modern U.S. history, prompted questions about whether MGM Resorts would also change the name of Mandalay Bay. McCall said the company probably needs more time to monitor the effect on business.

“They will wait to see if that name carries with it a sign of stigma in the long run,” he said.

Contact Todd Prince at tprince@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0386. Follow @toddprincetv on Twitter.