Las Vegas circus company buys tiny California desert town for $2.75m

Spiegelworld performers will go to Nipton ‘to dream, create and undertake unfettered artistic experimentation’

Nipton has now been dubbed Circus Town (Spiegelworld)

A Las Vegas circus company that has produced a string of hit shows for casinos in the city has expanded its footprint by buying a tiny California desert town.

Spiegelworld currently runs Absinthe at Caesars Palace, the Atomic Saloon Show at The Venetian, and OMP at Cosmopolitan, but now also owns remote Nipton, California, which has a population of around 25.

Nipton is now being called “Circus Town” following the $2.75m purchase, which actually went through last April.

“It will be a living town where Spiegelworld artists and performers will retreat to dream, create, and undertake unfettered artistic experimentation which will feed into the creation of Spiegelworld’s world-class shows,” Spiegelworld said in a statement.

“It will also be a place where visitors and passers-by can have an experience unlike anything else.”

Spiegelworld describes itself as “Redefining circus, cabaret, comedy, and burlesque for 21st Century audiences.”

The town is located in San Bernardino County’s Ivanpah Valley, around 12 miles from Primm, Nevada.

“Having a rambunctious circus company purchase a small town may sound like the Schitt’s Creek spin-off series. But that couldn’t be further from the truth,” said Spiegelworld’s Impresario Extraordinaire Ross Mollison.

Spiegelworld describes itself as ‘redefining circus, cabaret, comedy, and burlesque for 21st Century audiences’ (Spiegelworld)

“When we visited as guests a few years back, we fell in love with the peacefulness, the vast desert vistas, and the fireside chats with freight train drivers, miners, and workers. Jim Eslinger, the self-proclaimed mayor of Nipton, warned me that you need to have respect for the Mojave, and the desert will tell you if it is happy or unhappy with what you’re doing.”

It is not the first time that the town has been sold.

Nipton is about 12 miles from Primm, Nevada (Spiegelworld)

In 2017 it was bought for $5m by a cannabis company that rebranded it as “Magical Nipton” and tried to turn it into a cannabis retreat.

But despite inviting in the town’s infrastructure and building eco-cabins it was a failure and reverted to its original owner, says KTLA.