Choudhry and Baldizan: A couple of Las Vegas insiders who have taken it outside

By John Katsilometes

Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014 | 9:10 p.m.

Rehan Choudhry and Chris Baldizan are friends. They often talk informally of their respective jobs, which are to entertain tens of thousands of people in the great outdoors.

Choudhry and Baldizan are two kings of the asphalt jungle in VegasVille, Choudhry as founder of the Life Is Beautiful festival and Baldizan as a high-level entertainment exec with MGM Resorts.

Choudhry has a hold on several blocks of downtown. Baldizan brackets the Strip with MGM Resorts Village to the south and MGM Resorts Festival Grounds to the north.

Inevitably, over time those who are interested in maximizing Choudhry’s annual festival and MGM Festival Grounds began asking if that three-day downtown celebration might move to the Strip.

Reasons abound as to why such a move would make sense. It would save money, maybe cut operating costs by half. It would be easier to set up in, and tear down from, a flat and open festival space than in the middle of the urban landscape of downtown.

You would not risk upsetting churches, bail-bond businesses and guests at downtown hotels.

LIB is held in the fall. Baldizan and his team have a need for events in the fall.

But that is where the conversation stalls.

“The Las Vegas version of Life Is Beautiful will not move out of downtown,” Choudhry said during a phone conversation this morning. “It’s going to stay there. We are committed to downtown.”

One of Life Is Beautiful’s primary partners is the Downtown Project, and its four-pillar format of music, learning, art and food is custom-made for the downtown 15-block blueprint.

But Choudhry’s “Las Vegas version” allowance does indicate Choudhry and his partners are thinking beyond the borders of downtown.

“We’re built for a city environment and not a festival-field environment. But that being said, we have every intention of scaling this thing and creating additional LIB events in other markets.”

That might be three or four years out, a long-off concept as Life Is Beautiful still has not turned a profit in Las Vegas despite official reports of 90,000 in attendance over this year’s three-day spectacle. Choudhry talks of adjusting the format in whatever municipality picks up an LIB event — such as a three-day music festival on the East Coast, a one-day format similar to the Global Citizen Festival in Central Park in New York.

Life Is Beautiful might not make it to the Strip, but Choudhry says he is impressed with MGM Resorts' approach to mass gatherings. “I would love talking with them about doing some other concept over in their lot. It’s a cool space, and what Chris is doing is pretty tremendous.”

Less than 48 hours after LIB finished its run just to the north, Baldizan was on the MGM Resorts Festival site with a team of Rock in Rio officials. They all arrived on a brilliantly sunny morning to unveil a piece of the Rock Street façade as RIR exec Luis Justo was announcing Bruno Mars, Joss Stone and Ed Sheeran as the festival’s new acts when it makes its U.S. debut in May.

“Right now we’re going full steam ahead with the construction here, and I’m looking at the fall with this venue, as well,” Baldizan said Monday morning at the Rock in Rio site, which covers a little less than 50 acres. “We wouldn’t have built this venue for one particular event. We’re looking at other music festivals. We’re looking at non-traditional events, sporting events, food festivals, boxing, rodeo, UFC, rugby, soccer …”

Jai alai? Maybe not. But the point is Baldizan is authorized by Clark County to stage 12 events on the Festival Grounds in 2015. Rock in Rio is a massive event, but it’s just one of a dozen. Such shows as the Route 91 Festival might grow from the Village to the Festival Grounds in a matter of a couple of years, with the Village serving as “kind of like our triple-A park,” as Baldizan says. Single shows, too, are in play.

“We’re looking at one-offs, definitely, as an option,” he said. If Choudhry wants to engage in festival talk, well, “We would never turn that conversation away. But, again, the great thing about what we’re doing here is we’re trying to create a blank slate.”

Conceivably, LIB and MGM Resorts could wind up in a booking competition for similar acts. Mars, for example, would be an apt headliner at Life Is Beautiful. And Lionel Richie would be the kind of world-famous artist to perform at Rock in Rio.

But Choudhry says there is no bidding battle for talent in the offing.

“They are smart bookers over there, and they are not going to create a price war in this market the way we saw for DJs over the past few years or resident artists back in the ’90s,” Choudhry said. “Right now it looks like they are curating a festival that has a real international feel, which falls in line with what the Rock in Rio brand is. We’re going to continue to be the indie kind of rock festival that dabbles in hip-hop and EDM, but not excessively.”

In the end, Choudhry says, “I have confidence in our ability to play in the sandbox together.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.