For finding good hotel rates, there's a great program you can download - Travelaxe. http://www.travelaxe.com

It will tell you what's going on in town (convention wise), which has a big impact on the hotel rates, then it will check rates for like 50 different hotels, maybe more, from multiple sources, so that you can get the best price.

Vegas hotel rates, unlike most other cities, go up on the weekends for the most part. Rates are really date-specific at most of the strip hotels; one weekend they might be $200 more per night than the next, so you may want to check multiple weekends. And of course they're going to depend on where you want to stay. You can get into some questionable joints for under $30; for major strip properties, the weekend rates can be anywhere from $70 to $400+.

We recently discussed the car issue in the Vegas forum; you don't need one. Personally, I think they'd be more of a hassle than a help, and if you haven't been there before you'll probably want to walk the strip. There are also two monorails (Excalibur to Mandalay Bay and MGM to Ballys). Cabs are priced OK, so if you get tired of walking you can always take one, or if you want to go downtown or to the strip, depending on where you're staying.

I don't have any info about the gay scene, hopefully someone else can fill us in.

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