Las Vegas offers plenty of adventures and immersive attractions, but few provide opportunities to experience being an employee. Becoming a casino dealer requires education and verification. Chefs must have culinary experience, while DJs need some kind of proof that they can raise the roof. To become a temporary employee of Omega Mart, a subsidiary of the Dram corporation, one only needs a Boop Card.
Boop Cards are purchasable upon entry to the innocuous-looking grocery story inside the main mall of AREA15, the immersive entertainment district west of the Strip. There is much to peruse as a shopper. Nontoxic Gender Fluid soft drinks blend the taste of lavender and lemon. Room-temperature milk provides an alternative to chilled dairy products. Frozen drinks come in Primordial Ooze and Angel Slime flavors. The deli, “where family meats freedom,” offers sculpted cheese blocks and Meat Head samples that are “processed by pasture-trained, amateur meatierologists.”
No training is required for the Omega Access Cards that are keys to stations throughout the premises, although saying “Boop!” while inserting them is encouraged. On-the-job training, company confidential data and authorization to use restricted equipment are just some of the privileges that come with a “Boop Card.” Learn to soothe, deflect and redirect dissatisfied customers with Omega Attitude.
It also provides an introduction to the Dram family. More about the enigmatic owners of Omega Mart can be discovered via semi-hidden passages to the labyrinth-like corporate headquarters. Turn into an inconspicuous hallway, head up a flight of stairs, poke a head inside a camping tent on display or pull the right refrigerator door and enter a labyrinth-like alternative universe, ready to be explored.
This is where Omega Mart becomes interactive Mega Art. The stairs lead to an employee breakroom where one can be bestowed with “Employee of the Moment” status before discovering a passageway to corporate headquarters and research and development areas. If a phone rings, answer it. If a computer keyboard lies in front of a desktop monitor, type a few keystrokes.
There are many signs of reclusive (or missing?) corporate head Walter Dram’s presence, as well as his daughter and heir-apparent Cecelia. Bits of information can become clues to what appears to be a conspiracy involving the Dram family. Check the file cabinets in the Herman Resources department for translucent plates that slide into a hard drive and give deep background on personnel.
Or just roam through the area from room to room and marvel at the multitude of immersive installations. Light, sound, visual design and abstract concepts created by cutting-edge artists are around every corner, in every hallway and alcove. Stairways lead to interactive audio contraptions. Tunnels lead to different rooms or a short, rope-guided rock climb.
By the end of the experience, it should be self-evident whether one has what it takes to live the Dram Dream. Not everyone can be an Omega Mart employee, but anyone can be part of Omega Mart in a consumer sense with the purchase of crisis-averting Emergency Clams, Dehydrated Water or a Ridiculous Inflatable Swan-Thing.
3215 S. Rancho Drive, meow.wf/lvm
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