Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Festivals have been a game-changer in Las Vegas, but how much is enough?

2015 EDC: First Night

L.E. Baskow

Fans get a better view as the beat picks up while watching Arty at Circuit Grounds during the first night of the 2015 Electric Daisy Carnival on Friday, June 19, 2015, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The music stopped, but the singer kept rolling.

“Wait! That’s us!” Bruno Mars called out to his band, the Hooligans, pointing at a billboard at West Sahara Avenue and the Strip. Sure enough, there was the pop star’s name, next to other headliners Taylor Swift, No Doubt and Metallica. “On the billboard!” Mars shouted, laughing. “Right there!”

This playful moment unfolded on the final night of Rock in Rio USA, a festival staged over two weekends in May 2015 on what was once a vacant lot. Rewind to the previous summer, and the southwest corner of Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard, where Mars and his bandmates would play, was 50 acres of barren desert. Viewed at night from the deck of the nearby Stratosphere, what is now a fully functional festival venue was something of a black hole — undeveloped but rife with potential.

Rock in Rio USA: Day 4

2015 Rock in Rio USA Day 4 featured Bruno Mars, John Legend, Empire of the Sun, Joss Stone, pictured here, and more Saturday, May 16, 2015, at MGM Resorts Festival Grounds. Launch slideshow »

“Five years ago, we had none of these music festivals, nothing like what we have now,” says Las Vegas Events President Pat Christenson, whose organization serves as the bridge between festival promoters and the promotional partnerships those festivals need to turn a profit. “Now we have a lot of diversity, many different types of events and a good set of quality experiences that we can develop and grow.”

But the emergence of festivals has changed the face of Las Vegas entertainment, making it more competitive than ever. And what’s become abundantly clear is that in the effort to make the city a major festival destination — led by Las Vegas Events and MGM Resorts executives, Life is Beautiful’s original organizers and Electric Daisy Carnival producer Insomniac — clearing out a space or retrofitting a massive piece of property is just the start.

2015 EDC: Three Nights

The 2015 Electric Daisy Carnival from June 19-21, 2015, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Launch slideshow »

•••

A key barometer of Las Vegas’ capacity for large-scale outdoor festivals is Rock in Rio USA, the American version of the fest that started in 1985 in Brazil and evolved into a series that would dwarf even Woodstock. Drawing such superstars as the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney and virtually every contemporary artist of merit, Rock in Rio now alternates between Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Lisbon.

The festival is divided into two parts, Rock Weekend and Pop Weekend, and boasts considerable range in its multistage setup. It has drawn huge turnouts, including 1.5 million fans at the first event three decades ago in Rio. Lisbon and Madrid have since surpassed 350,000 attendees. But in Las Vegas, the inaugural Rock in Rio USA was a comparatively difficult draw. Unlike Rio, where the festival is the only significant entertainment event in May for a population base of 6 million, Las Vegas offers top-flight entertainment along the Strip all the time in a metro area of about 2 million. Plus, in a collision of rock events last year, Journey — which would have been a natural fit for Rock in Rio — had a residency at the Hard Rock Hotel’s Joint in April and May, just as the new festival was loading in.

From the stacked headliners ranging from Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez to Celine Dion and Elton John to the seven resident Cirque du Soleil shows, the volume of options for ticket-buyers in Las Vegas is staggering, especially to outside promoters. So initial projections of 82,000 fans per weekend of Rock in Rio USA (328,000 over four nights) were swiftly dialed back. The official tally was 172,000 over two weekends, but sources familiar with the hard numbers put them lower, around 140,000.

Rock in Rio USA Day 3: Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift performs at Rock in Rio USA on Friday, May 15, 2015, in Las Vegas. Launch slideshow »

Consequently, financial losses in the festival’s kickoff year were considerable — estimated to be $24 million to $28 million. Rock in Rio officials were willing to accept some losses as part of their $50 million investment in delivering the brand to the U.S. for the first time, but industry experts weren’t expecting a shortfall of more than $20 million.

The festival did produce $25 million in gross revenue, which is impressive, until you consider the huge outlays it made for big-name acts and environmental flourishes. Dedicated to brand and format, Rock in Rio brass built extensive and expensive “Rock Streets” emulating the U.S., UK and Brazil. And attractions included a zipline over the main stage, a Ferris wheel in the middle of the parcel and a reinforced VIP tent that cost upwards of $4 million to construct.

“When you look at what Rock in Rio actually delivered, if they made $25 million, most festivals would be doing backflips over that,” says MGM Resorts Senior Vice President of Entertainment Development Chris Baldizan, who books events at all MGM Resorts properties, including the outdoor venues. “They stuck to their guns on a lot of things, and the first event was definitely a learning experience for everybody.”

Will Rock in Rio return to Las Vegas in 2017? After a successful edition in Lisbon in May, there’s no definitive word on where it will land when (or even if) it rotates back to the U.S.

“We’re like everybody else, just waiting to hear back to pull the trigger,” Baldizan says. “We will need to hear in the next month or two. We need that information. We should be getting ready to be booking Rock in Rio right now. We are kind of behind the eight ball.”

Rock in Rio executives say they’re coming back, but nothing is confirmed. “We are still working on the next edition of Vegas,” CEO Luis Justo said in an email.

Regardless of what happens with Rock in Rio, the Festival Grounds won’t go quiet. The site has an annual event locked up — the Academy of Country Music’s Party for a Cause. That festival, benefiting the ACM Lifting Lives veterans-support charity, played out over three nights in April and drew an announced attendance of 54,375, matching pre-show estimates. Concerts were headlined by superstars Carrie Underwood, Dierks Bentley and Kenny Chesney, and crowds delivered some healthy business to host hotel SLS Las Vegas.

“It was a sold-out weekend with rates more than 20 percent above average, food and beverage outlets seeing a 46 percent increase in revenue and an additional 40,000 people exposed to the property thanks to the Las Vegas Monorail,” SLS President Scott Kreeger says. “Not only were we the official host hotel for attendees, we were also the Las Vegas resort of choice for several ACM nominees and performers.” The property benefited further by having its LED marquee in the backdrop of the main stage, viewed by thousands of photo-snapping attendees.

In April, then-ACM President Bob Romeo said there were a few hiccups (too few security personnel and an inadequate power grid), he considered the event a success. It was a fair measure more appealing than the 2015 Party for a Cause, which was wiped out by heavy rains after being moved to the Texas Rangers’ home stadium in Arlington. “Weather is a key factor, and in Arlington we were slammed with a terrible, terrible storm,” said Romeo, who left his post abruptly on May 13. “Not that it doesn’t get bad in Vegas, but it’s nothing like the risk you take in other regions like Oklahoma, Texas, Florida and other areas.”

2016 ACM Party for a Cause: Day 2

Day 2 of 2016 ACM Party for a Cause with Frankie Ballard, Dustin Lynch, Chris Young, Lee Brice and Dierks Bentley, pictured here, on Saturday, April 2, 2016, at Las Vegas Festival Grounds. Launch slideshow »

Romeo’s departure has left the Party for a Cause in question. The ACM has set a board meeting for June 21 to discuss the festival.

Beyond the weather, another factor setting Las Vegas apart is accommodations. Multiday festivals here do not rely on on-site camping, which is common at events like Burning Man near Reno, Bonnaroo in Tennessee and Coachella in California. “This is the urban camping model,” Romeo said with a chuckle. “You have thousands of great hotel rooms, comfortable rooms where you can sleep in comfort and shower and return to the site. If you look at getting a good room rate and a Southwest flight, it’s probably cheaper than driving your RV out to the event. It’s a more contemporary festival experience. No other city can give you that like Las Vegas can.”

For tourism officials, that’s a selling point.

“The beauty of these festivals, which we discovered quickly, is identifying the iconic regions of Las Vegas, especially the Strip with its great sightlines,” Las Vegas Events’ Christenson says. “The Festival Grounds and Village are right on the Strip. We have EDC at the Speedway and it is beautiful, and LIB in the middle of downtown Las Vegas. We have a diverse number of festivals with diverse entertainment and experiences, but collectively we are marketing Las Vegas.”

For the city’s entertainment institutions, the festival phenomenon can be good and bad for business. The nightclub scene blossoms with star DJs during EDC Week, tailoring its already EDM-heavy programming to the throngs bouncing from the Strip to the Speedway. Smaller venues, too, get creative with promotions tied to multiday happenings that bring extra bodies and energy to Las Vegas.

But in theaters and showrooms across the city, producers typically plan for a sag in ticket sales during behemoth events such as EDC. Some take shows down entirely that week. Others lighten schedules. Still others bite the bullet, accepting lighter houses as the price of doing business in this busy entertainment market.

Since EDC moved its wonderland to our desert in 2011, Cirque du Soleil has established a routine of pausing some productions while it’s in town. “We regularly adjust our schedules based on market activity,” Cirque Senior Vice President Jerry Nadal says. “Specifically during EDC, demand warranted a reduction in our show offerings.”

Base Entertainment, which has produced several Strip shows, looks at tourism trends during holidays and large-scale events. “We strategically schedule our resident headliners, who contractually have a number of dark weeks per year anyway, around some of these major events,” spokeswoman Ashley Saccenti says. “Mat Franco (at the Linq), Frankie Moreno, Paul Zerdin (both at Planet Hollywood) and ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ (at Harrah’s) are just some of our productions that are dark the week that EDC is in town, and I’m sure those are just some of the shows that are going dark that week.”

Those that remain in production feel a pinch. SPI Entertainment founder Adam Steck says “Jukebox” by Human Nature at the Venetian can expect a shortfall of 200 or so tickets — from 500 down to 300 — during EDC. “Thunder from Down Under” at Excalibur drops from its sellout range of 385 to around 300. Insomniac’s dance party in the desert has the most obvious impact on resident shows, but as the festival scene grows, the ripples could, too.

“I think it’s great for the city, to have these big festivals. It drives up visitor numbers and brings in a lot of new people,” Steck says. “But when they are here, room rates go up, and those people are not hitting our shows.”

•••

In an event landscape this rich, good shows can close. And promising festivals can fail, though the scale of fallen favorite Vegoose (an indie gem that ran from ’05 to ’07 at Sam Boyd Stadium) is nowhere near Rock in Rio, which may not return. And in the vein of homegrown music fests, Life Is Beautiful has operated in the red since its 2013 debut.

Still, Las Vegas is on the festival map, and armed with some powerful success stories. EDC attracted a record crowd of 405,000 in three days in June 2015, generating $350 million in direct, indirect and induced money in the Clark County economy. The estimate, compiled by Los Angeles-based economic research and consulting firm Beacon Economics, counts not only ticket buyers and what they spend specifically on the EDC, but also what is generated in taxes, payroll to staff for event staging and revenue for transportation companies shepherding fans.

Since 2011, EDC has generated $1.3 billion in the local economy and drawn 1.7 million fans to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which was built in 1996 specifically for motor-sports events. There is talk in the entertainment community that a similar event might set up in Laughlin, or that Insomniac could host an EDM event at the Festival Grounds. LIB, too, has long been the source of speculation that it might uproot from Fremont Street and move to that site on the Strip.

At the 15-acre Las Vegas Village across from the Luxor, the Route 91 Harvest Country Music Festival has been the hottest ticket of any event on that parcel. It has routinely sold out its 25,000 three-day passes with concerts by the likes of Brad Paisley, Luke Bryan and Toby Keith.

The site also was home to September’s iHeartRadio Music Festival daytime concert, drawing over 20,000 fans. Wine Amplified, a combo fest of wine tasting and concerts headlined this year by Panic! At the Disco and Sublime, drew 12,000 there over two nights. And the versatility of the space was further evident with the May staging of the annual Helldorado Days rodeo.

But the activity at the Village only makes the scarcity of programming at the Festival Grounds more obvious. The sheer volume of events in the music festival category has an inevitable effect on the viability of such multiday showcases here. An official familiar with the industry said there were 1,700 to 3,000 music festivals annually in the U.S. According to Nielsen Music, in 2014 that translated to 32 million people attending at least one festival. The favorites (and their ironclad headliners) could be cutting into business and booking options in Las Vegas.

Coachella takes place in April, just before Rock in Rio would return next May. Also in May was the BottleRock Festival in Napa Valley, a music/wine-tasting event with Lenny Kravitz, Buddy Guy and Stevie Wonder on deck.

Even more daunting, from a scheduling perspective, is a new Coachella event that hits in October, featuring McCartney, the Stones, the Who, Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd — right on the heels of Life Is Beautiful. Organizing that event is AEG Live, a longtime booking partner of MGM Resorts.

If MGM gets its way, the Festival Grounds will be the home of concerts like Mars’ closeout show for years to come. Because despite the heavy competition, both from festivals elsewhere and the Strip’s abundance of indoor shows, Las Vegas organizers aren’t backing away. Christenson calls the Festival Grounds iconic, “with an 80,000-capacity layout that is a perfect festival site on the most famous street in the world. Not everything there has penciled out, true, but I think what Las Vegas has proved in a very short period of time is that it is in the festival business.”

There is no doubt of that point. Tourism and entertainment officials remember not so long ago when filling Las Vegas Motor Speedway for three consecutive nights with an electronic music festival was just a pipe dream. But these outdoor events need to find their place in a city that has well-earned its reputation as the Entertainment Capital of the World. Some events might need to be scaled back. While Rock in Rio might have discovered that Las Vegas simply can’t support a music festival over two weekends on the Strip when there is so much entertainment already being staged, finding out how much is enough is one component of an accepted growth pattern. And in Las Vegas, the way to find that balance is to stage these festivals and let the public render its verdict.

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