Bob Marley & The Wailers ADD

Review: Bob Marley Hope Road - Opening Night in Las Vegas 2025

07/31/2025 by Roger Steffens

The spectacular Bob Marley Hope Road event opened in the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Hotel on July 18, 2025. As an advisor on history and memorabilia I and my wife Mary were invited to be part of the immersive experience’s formal debut. It was a star-studded event, with participants including Island Records' aging founder, Chris Blackwell; exhibit overseer Cedella Marley, looking 30 years younger than her real age, accompanying her wheel-chair bound mother Rita and several of her own children, including Skip Marley.

It's difficult to describe the multitudinous nature of the experience, which is divided into two parts, with separate entry fees, throughout the day and evening. We began with the evening portion which fills six rooms.

You enter Hope Road rich with memorabilia from various major events of his life, and other pictures, animations and advertisements, showing the huge international reach of the reggae master’s career. A layer of video projection animations brings the space and history to life.  Together, we experience Bob’s journey through the people, places and visuals that shaped his life, art and social activism.

Among the pictures is a well-known shot of my own, featuring Bob in profile, with a spliff in his hand, its smoke curling up to the top of the frame. In the Hope Road Show it hangs on the wall while an unnerving special effect makes it appear that the smoke is rising off the surface of the print and spiraling onto the poster above, moving constantly. Just one of the many fascinating nuances of the presentations.

From there you enter into the Dancehall in which performers mingle, a bar opens, and folks are free to mix with the actors and dancers, the majority of whom are Jamaican or of other Caribbean descent, and have signed 18 month contracts. There are three different casts each day, 13 members each, and smiles between them and their audiences abounded everywhere one looked. 
 
In the nighttime, the Show begins with a performer DJ connecting the crowd for the journey ahead; in the Experience, the Dancehall space comes to life via DJs Zuri and Shacia Payne Marley (Ziggy and Stephen Marley’s daughters). They are not only incredible DJs but also storytellers – layering the music and interacting with visitors, establishing a warm and welcoming Jamaican vibe with anecdotes, playful jokes, facts about songs, lyric highlights, and info about other rooms.

A giant “Jamming Tree” appears with acrobats floating above its branches. It’s inspired by the foundational “witness trees” and roots seen at Hope Road, Tuff Gong, Trench Town and Cane River Falls.

Another room, inspired by Trench Town, hosts an orange bus, like the one Bob did early ‘70s tours in, with a soccer-ball juggler standing on his head and bouncing the ball with his upraised feet, a real crowd pleaser.

Murals abound, with costumed folk seemingly leaping out from them. One particularly striking piece by Jamaican street artist Paige Zombie features the quote, “In this bright future, you can’t forget your past,” which speaks to the inspiration of the space.

In the Experience, secret doors in these murals reveal mixing studios where one can create their own version of a Marley classic. Visitors can mix their own tracks on working sound boards by manipulating guitar, drum, keyboard and Bob’s vocal stems. The interactive consoles were inspired by Bob’s vibrant blue Helios mixing desk on which he recorded his first four studio albums. It’s also a prime space for photos and filming video of each song creation experience in the studio atmosphere.

Another room features a wall with images of interactive records on them that you can actually spin; a nearby wall lets you paint with your body and bring different parts of Bob’s songs to life as lyrics appear, zoetropes spin, and rare footage pops up.

Back to the Show: There is a “Get Up Stand Up Cathedral” where “War” and “No Woman No Cry” fill the hall. At the end of all of this tremendous hubbub is the amazing denouement – a 3D curved screen that combines groundbreaking technology and visuals while the cast performs a “One Love” finale that celebrates Bob’s message to the world.

In the Experience, this screen features Bob and the I Threes at the Rainbow in London with six of Bob’s biggest songs. Our jaws were dropping the whole time, feeling as if we were standing right up next to Bob on stage, or swaying with the I Threes just inches away. When the camera panned to the enormous two balconied concert hall, we felt like were seeing it through Bob’s own eyes.

We staggered out of the room into the lobby of the Mandalay, eyes popping, trancelike, trying to absorb the barrage of images, sounds and smells. It’s a breath-taking experience and every true Marley fan should get there asap to see it too. My congratulations to Chloé Douglas, the tireless director of the Experience, and the super staff who saw all the details come together.