brisvegas

Ironic yet affectionate term for the city of Brisbane, Australia (population nearing 1.7 million these days). It's also a city a lot of people - especially southerners - like to rag, however I personally love the place and consider the people to be intelligent and friendly, and the weather fantastic. There's nothing hick-like about this town. Perhaps there was in the Sir Joh era (circa 1980s), but certainly not anymore.

As far as I am aware, the term "Brisvegas" originated as an ironic association with Las Vegas, to pay out on Brissy's less-than-perfect nightlife scene and perhaps its general "things to do" factor (at the time). And yet, while meant to be an insult initially, recently Brisbanites have "reclaimed" the word, of sorts, as an endearing term for a city that, while not exactly being "where it's at" in any sense of the word, is still a pretty cool place to live.

Affectionate but irritating term used for the city of Brisbane.
According to The Age: 'A staffer from Brisbane's Time Off magazine reckons it was coined as a result of an Elvis tribute CD it put out in 1994.'As do I. The term never existed before this, but within a few years was adopted idiotically by Brisbane yuppies, who had no idea of said indie CD compilation that coined the term. Another example of indie culture seeping into the mainstream, and its origins being forgotten.

Local term to describe Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, and declared the most livable city in Australia several years running. Brisbane has a population of around 1.5 million, and is the centre of the South-East Queensland corridor that runs from the Sunshine Coast to the New South Wales border (although some would include the northern coast of New South Wales around Kingscliffe in this definition.) This area has the dubious distinction of being the fastest growing region in Australia, with the Gold Coast hosting an annual drunken debauch called "Schoolie's Week" in November-December.

Connection to Las Vegas... It seems to have been coined when they decided to turn a lovely, but derelect building in the heart of the city into a casino.

Nickname for Brisbane. (see above definitions) Mentioned in the novel "Tasmanian Babes Fiasco" published 1997, but probably has earlier origins.

a term used to describe brisbane by other countries. however, no person who lives in brisbane (aka 'brisbanite') actually calls it that, nor do they know that it is even called 'brisvegas'.

Coined by several Melbourians in 1992-3 who came up to study at Griffith University in the Law program. These particular Melbourians used to party quite hard in the local scene and found it all wanting in brisvegas, a place of very little excitement and bright lights with no substance. Also around this time Grand Orbit nightclub was launced by several other Melbourians to arrest this lack of nightlife and instead of just bemoaning the fact that there was nothing going on in this hick town, turned GO into the place to be in Brisvegas. This is the earliest known recording of the term brisvegas.

In the early 90s, Brisbane was just starting to wake up from being a sleepy big country town. The alternative scene of musos and general party animals still saw the town as the aforementioned sleepy big country town where restaurants shut early and pubs closed at midnight.

To take the mickey they started to nickname their town 'BrisVegas' because it was nothing like the 24 hour American party city.

The nickname stuck, and as Brisbane emerged as a modern city sometimes the origins of this nickname as mistaken and taken to mean that Brisbane was likened to Las Vegas - when it was the opposite.