Entertainment
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Eight days from its opening night when Katrina destroyed it, and now home to the only free museum-grade collection in Biloxi.
The invitations had gone out. Hard Rock Biloxi was due to open its doors on 1 September 2005 with a grand opening the following week, and on the morning of 29 August the storm surge picked up the casino barge, turned it over and drove it into the back of the hotel tower. The Center Bar — a circular bar with a guitar sculpture over it — floated out of the building and was later recovered. The resort opened, eventually, on 7 July 2007, a date chosen for the numerals as much as anything else.
That two-year gap is the whole identity of the place, and the reason it feels different from the older resorts along this beach. Nothing here is a survivor. It is a building that got hit before it ever traded.
The thing worth walking in for, and the thing the property is worst at advertising, is the memorabilia. Hard Rock's collection here runs through the public areas — stage clothes, instruments, handwritten lyrics, cased items with their provenance on the card beside them — and it is free. Nobody checks a room key. An Elvis Presley army uniform and B.B. King's guitar Lucille have both been on show, and a number of pieces were recovered from the wreckage after the storm. Individual items rotate between Hard Rock properties worldwide, so what is on a given wall this month may be in Orlando next year.
Outside, the sign is a landmark in its own right: a neon guitar reported at a hundred and twelve feet, built by Peavey, the audio manufacturer founded up the road in Meridian, Mississippi. It came through the storm when the casino did not, which locals found either funny or fitting depending on the week.
The rest is a mid-sized casino hotel — four hundred and seventy-nine rooms across two towers, a pool deck, a Hard Rock Cafe, a steakhouse and a fifteen-hundred-capacity live room that books real touring acts.
The property fronts US 90 on the north side, a short distance east of the lighthouse and within the main run of casino towers. The guitar sign is visible from a long way along the beach road in both directions, which makes it the easiest of the Biloxi resorts to navigate to.
Self-parking has generally been free at the coast casinos, with a garage on site and valet at the main entrance. The beach road restricts left turns in places, so if you overshoot, carry on to the next crossover rather than improvising.
From Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport allow around twenty minutes. From Ocean Springs, cross the Biloxi Bay bridge westbound and continue past Point Cadet for about five minutes.
On foot it is an easy walk from Beau Rivage and from the beach, using the signalised crossings on US 90, and the beachfront path connects the whole strip if the weather is reasonable.
Walk in from the beach entrance and start looking up. The collection is hung and cased through the circulation spaces, the restaurant walls and the stairwells, and it is one of the better ones in the chain because the property leaned into music history hard when it opened.
What you are looking at is genuinely catalogued material rather than reproductions: instruments with playing wear on them, stage clothes with alteration marks, handwritten sheets with crossings-out. The cards give provenance. Some pieces here came out of the storm — recovered, cleaned and rehung — and staff will tell you which ones if you ask, which is the single best reason to ask.
Two caveats. First, items rotate. Hard Rock moves pieces between properties, so anything named in a guide published a year ago may not be on this wall today, and that includes the famous ones. Second, some of the best pieces hang in areas attached to the gaming floor, which means they are effectively closed to under-21s.
Allow half an hour if you are drifting and an hour if you are reading the cards. It is a legitimate rainy-afternoon option in a city with a shortage of them, it costs nothing, and it is considerably more interesting than the average hotel lobby. Go on a weekday morning when the building is quiet and you can actually stand in front of things.
The neon guitar standing at the front of the property is reported at a hundred and twelve feet, and it is the most photographed man-made object on this beach after the lighthouse. It also has a local pedigree that almost nobody mentions.
It was built by Peavey, the audio equipment manufacturer founded in Meridian, Mississippi — a company that spent decades making amplifiers in the same state that produced Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Bo Diddley and Elvis Presley's birthplace at Tupelo. Putting a Mississippi-built guitar in front of a music-themed casino on the Mississippi coast is a joke that works on several levels at once.
It survived 29 August 2005 while the casino barge behind it did not. Photographs from that week show the guitar standing over a wrecked site, which is why the sign carries a bit more local weight than a corporate logo normally would.
At night it is worth a detour. The best view is from the beach side of US 90, where you get the guitar, the neon and the tower in one frame without a car park in the foreground. It photographs well from the sand about twenty minutes after sunset, when there is still colour in the sky behind it.
The concert room here holds roughly fifteen hundred people, and that number explains what plays in it. It is too big for a bar act and far too small for a stadium tour, which puts it exactly where touring rock, country, comedy and heritage acts live.
The practical consequence for a visitor is good. Acts that would be a distant dot in an arena play a room where the back wall is close, tickets are not arena-priced, and the whole evening is a hundred yards from your hotel bed. For a certain kind of trip that is a better night out than anything else on this coast.
Schedules are published a few months ahead and the good shows sell through, particularly anything drawing from New Orleans, Mobile and Jackson as well as locally — this coast pulls an audience from a long way inland. Check what is on before you fix your dates rather than after, because a Saturday with a name act is a different Biloxi from a Saturday without one.
Standing and seated configurations vary by show. If that matters, check the layout when you buy. And note that some events in the room are 21-plus regardless of the act, which is a licensing decision rather than a content one.
Mississippi casino floors permit smoking over large areas, and Biloxi is not an exception. This is the thing visitors from states with comprehensive indoor bans notice within about ninety seconds of walking in, and it is worth deciding about before you book rather than after.
What that means in practice: the gaming floor smells of smoke, the ventilation is good by casino standards but it is still a casino, and the smell carries into spaces that open directly off the floor. Guest rooms are generally non-smoking and the restaurants vary. Anybody with asthma, a respiratory condition or a low tolerance should plan routes through the building that avoid the floor, and should ask at the desk which restaurants have their own entrances.
Non-smoking gaming areas exist at some coast properties and their extent changes. If it matters to you, ask when booking rather than relying on a website.
None of this is unique to the Hard Rock and it is not a reason to avoid the building, particularly since the memorabilia and the live room are the reasons to be here. But it is the honest answer to a question people ask and casino marketing never addresses.
Straight-line distances, so allow more on the road — the island is long and has one main parkway.
Entertainment
The resort that brought Las Vegas building to Mississippi in 1999, and reopened exactly one year after Katrina closed it.
1–5 hoursNo admission charge to enter the resort or walk the public areas. Rooms, dining, the spa and theatre tickets are all priced separately.0.2 mi away
Beach
Miles of public sand along the beach highway, free to use, shallow a long way out, and with no shade anywhere on it.
1–4 hoursFree. The sand is public along its whole length and parking along the frontage is free in most places.220 ft away
Landmark
An 1848 cast-iron tower marooned in the median of a four-lane highway, kept for sixty-three years by one family of women.
0.5–1 hoursFree to see and photograph from the street or the beach. Climbing the tower carries a small fee when climbs are running.0.6 mi away
Entertainment
Mississippi's coastal casino era began on this patch of Point Cadet in 1992, at the quiet end of the strip beside the bay bridge.
1–4 hoursNo charge to enter or walk the public areas. Rooms, dining and parking-adjacent extras are priced separately.1.9 mi away
Where this place fits into a day, and the pages that plan one.
Guide hub
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Budget
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Who it suits
Eight casino resorts operate inside the Biloxi city limits, which for a city of fewer than fifty thousand people is an extraordinary concentration…
Things to do
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Guide
Almost everything a visitor sees on the Biloxi waterfront is younger than 2006. This is why, told with the dates, the numbers and the things that were not rebuilt.
9 min readAdeline Boudreaux
Guide
Eight casino resorts sit inside the city limits because of two changes in Mississippi law, thirty-five years apart. What that means for a visitor who may not gamble at all.
8 min readAdeline Boudreaux
Yes. The collection is hung and cased through the public circulation areas and restaurant walls, and nobody checks a room key to look at it. Expect instruments, stage clothes and handwritten material with provenance cards, including pieces recovered after Hurricane Katrina. Two limits: items rotate between Hard Rock properties worldwide, and some of the best pieces hang in areas attached to the gaming floor, where under-21s may not go.
No, and that is the striking part. It was scheduled to open on 1 September 2005 with a grand opening the following week. The storm made landfall on 29 August, flipped the casino barge and drove it into the back of the hotel tower, and the resort did not trade at all until 7 July 2007. The Center Bar floated out of the building during the surge and was later recovered.
It is reported at about a hundred and twelve feet, and it is the most photographed man-made thing on this beach after the lighthouse. It was built by Peavey, the audio equipment manufacturer founded in Meridian, Mississippi, which gives it a local pedigree most visitors never hear about. It survived the 2005 storm when the casino behind it did not. Shoot it from the beach side of US 90 shortly after sunset.
The room holds roughly fifteen hundred, which puts it between a bar and an arena: touring rock and country acts, comedians, heritage bands and tribute shows. The advantage is proximity — performers who would be a dot in a stadium are close here, at prices well below arena level. Listings go up a few months ahead and the strong shows sell through, drawing an audience from New Orleans, Mobile and Jackson as well as locally.
Over large parts of the gaming floors, yes. Mississippi casino floors permit smoking and Biloxi is no exception, which surprises visitors from states with comprehensive indoor bans. Guest rooms are generally non-smoking and restaurants vary, some with their own street entrances. If you have a respiratory condition, ask at the desk for routes that avoid the floor and check which non-smoking gaming areas exist, since their extent changes.