(Bloomberg) — On Saturday evening, Nov. 5, Lewis Hamilton joined Diplo on stage at the XS nightclub in Las Vegas, dancing with the microphone while the EDM impresario DJed. It was the culmination to a pounding weekend for the seven-time Formula 1 champion. Earlier that day he had driven F1 cars directly under the lights of the Las Vegas strip ,along with F1 drivers Alex Albon, Sergio Perez and George Russell, in a “fan fest” to promote the sport to the city that next year will sponsor its first F1 Grand Prix race since 1982.
The upcoming race weekend, scheduled for Nov. 16-18, 2023, will be the most expensive of any in the F1 schedule, said F1 Group Chief Executive Officer Stefano Domenicali. Three-day general admission tickets start at $500, and better seats in the grandstands start at $2,500; hospitality packages and “entertainment experiences,” which include seats during the big race, have already been ranging in price from $10,000 to $1 million. It is expected to surpass even Miami in terms of the white-hot appetite among fans to get tickets, lodging and party access.
“The Formula 1 announcement was probably one of the biggest announcements, if not the biggest announcement, Las Vegas has ever had,” says Steve Hill, CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. “I’d compare it to a Super Bowl announcement—and we got them both around the same time. The combination is certainly terrific.” (Super Bowl LVIII is slated to happen in 2024 in Paradise, Nevada, eight miles from the Vegas strip.)
The Las Vegas Grand Prix is hardly the only major car-related event happening in Sin City next year.
The weekend prior to the GP, Wynn Las Vegas will present its second-annual Las Vegas Concours d’Elegance, a 230-plus vehicle car show set on the Wynn golf course. This year the concours was held on Oct. 29 with the dramatic MGM Sphere concert venue set like the Death Star in the background; attendance was capped at 3,500.
Meanwhile, the SEMA show—an automotive aftermarket trade fair that showcases million-dollar off-road trucks and specialty builds to tens of thousands of ticketholders—will run from Oct. 31 to Nov. 3, 2023. Nascar will be at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on March 5 and Oct. 15. And out at the track 15 miles from Caesar’s Palace, nearly 20 NHRA racing teams will return to Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Oct. 26-29 for the NHRA Nevada Nationals, the penultimate event of the drag-racing season.
Add the autonomous—and electric-vehicle-heavy—Consumer Electronics Show, which showcases futuristic concepts from the likes of Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz every January; multiple car auctions from houses like Mecums and Barrett-Jackson; and the prestigious Mint 400, America’s oldest off-road race held annually in March, and you’ve got quite a cavalcade of car events on the calendar for the Nevada desert.
LA and Miami aside, those who watch closely are saying Las Vegas is a vibrant, passionate and very well-funded rising star of car culture in the United States.
“Many of the world’s greatest car events have become very exclusive due to the combination of their well-deserved success, their location and the inevitable lack of infrastructure,” says Phillip Sarofim, a prominent collector and the owner of Meyers Manx. “Las Vegas is a destination which attracts the best food, music and entertainment from across the globe—and its enormous, purpose-built infrastructure allows [car events such as the concours] to potentially be both impressive and inclusive and continue to grow, unrestrained, for generations to come.”
“We have long been a car city,” says Hill. “We haven’t talked about being a car capital yet—but maybe we should be.”
We’ve Been Here Before
It’s not the first time Las Vegas boosters have lobbied to make their city more car-centric. In 1981, Caesar’s Palace hosted an F1 Grand Prix that was the final race of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship that year. Australian Alan Jones won, and Frenchman Alain Proust finished second. In 1982, the Italian Michele Alboreto won; that was also the last F1 race ever driven by former world champion Mario Andretti.
But even the best efforts of Bernie Ecclestone, the notorious “F1 Supremo” former owner of the racing series, failed to convince fans and promoters that Formula racing had a place in Vegas. Drivers hated the slow and awkward E-shaped track built in a glorified parking lot behind Caesar’s. They also hated the heat. Nelson Piquet, who struggled to finish fifth in the Oct 17 race in 1981, famously suffered heat exhaustion after the race due to the near suffocating temperatures inside his car. After two years on the F1 circuit, the track was converted to a round one in 1983 for a more specialized car-racing series.
Organizers took note and adjusted. Earlier this year, Liberty Media paid $240 million for a 39-acre plot near the MGM Sphere to construct pit lanes, paddocks and hospitality to augment the race course, which will run through closed city streets rather than a stifling parking lot. The race is slated to begin at 10 p.m., long after the November sun has settled for the night. And the fears about sound pollution on city streets, which have stymied such places as New York City and LA from having a modern F1 race, don’t apply here, says Hill.
“Vegas is the only city that has been built to be a platform for events and for people to come and have fun,” he says. “If you live in the resort corridor and are unaware of that, you haven’t been paying attention. It is who we are.”
“The city now has a proven track record of attracting sports fans and following the overwhelming amount of interest during our first wave of ticket sales, we feel as though we made the right choice in bringing the sport to Las Vegas,” says Emily Prazer, chief commercial officer for F1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix. On Nov. 4, Heineken was named title sponsor of the race. “I think the addition of Formula 1 will continue to open the door for new and significant increases in car and car culture-adjacent events for the local area.”
Where the World Comes to Play
Visit Vegas for a weekend, and its appeal for driving enthusiasts and car aficionados is obvious. Unlike Detroit, a faded if authentic automotive hub, Vegas boasts warm year-round temperatures and just 21 days of rain. (Smart travelers will avoid the 100F-plus days of July and August.)
On any of those perfect driving weather days, collectors can aim their McLaren Speedtails and Lamborghini Huracans right off the Strip directly toward hundreds of miles of picturesque canyon roads and lonely two-lane highways, including access to large swaths of Death Valley, the red-hued sandstone petroglyphs in Valley of Fire, the Grand Canyon, and the booming Hoover Dam. A recent drive on nearby Route 167 included a chance encounter with DTM car racing champion Maximilian Götz, who drives for Mercedes-AMG, taking in the breeze on a rented Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
“I had always wanted to come here,” Götz said. “It’s more incredible than I expected.”
Then there are such world-class hotels as the Wynn Las Vegas, Aria, Caesar’s Palace, and Waldorf Astoria, which are larger, more polished and more accessible to world travelers than the regional, often overused and under-staffed spots attendees must frequent when they attend the concourses in Carmel, California, and Amelia Island, Florida.
Meanwhile, LA’s too-cool hotspot Delilah opened at the Wynn last year; Cipriani at Wynn and Carbone at Aria opened in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Martha Stewart just opened the Bedford, her French cuisine restaurant, at Caesar’s. Peter Luger steakhouse will open its first outpost outside New York City later this year. Sting, Adele, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Santana, Justin Bieber and Rod Stewart will all play shows in Vegas in 2023. Resort World Las Vegas is already selling package experiences.
“People need a nice place to stay. They’re going to need a nice place to eat,” says Brian Gullbrants, the president of Wynn Las Vegas, noting that Wynn recently opened its flagship Gucci store and that the Louis Vuitton flagship will soon open. Givenchy, Hermès and Dior are among the shops inside the Wynn hotel. “There’s something to do for everyone.”
Then there are the casinos—going gangbusters lately, it turns out.
“There’s clearly a lot of uncertainty in the global marketplace right now,” Vince Sadusky, CEO of slot machine maker International Game Technology Plc, told Bloomberg, but IGT’s margins have hit near historical highs and sales have exceeded expectations, he said. “The great thing is we’re achieving our numbers.”
To the well-heeled car-obsessed person, all this means two things: (1) I can finally attend a car event with accommodations on par with the other places I stay in my free time that honor my high hospitality expectations, and (2) My signifiant other who does not love cars will have plenty to do—shop, sip, spa, sunbathe, slots—while I drool over million-dollar Porsches.
“People are looking for connection and experience and an opportunity to just let their hair down and have fun,” Gullbrants says. “Cars are the center of the weekend, but not the only piece of the weekend.” The company is already privately selling access and experience packages for concours- and race-weekend 2023; pricing is available upon request.
Money, Money, Money
You can bet luxury brands and buyers are paying attention. McLaren attended the Las Vegas Concours with multiple show cars and a tent to get a feel for what next year’s opportunity might present, a spokesperson says. Bugatti, Bentley and Koenigsegg have all indicated they will repeat their involvement in the Concours, says Gullbrants, adding: “We have already had a few other brands that have called us and said we are so sorry we missed it; how can we get in next year?”
“The demand for [F1] is well beyond what we were expecting, and the pricing is beyond normal,” echoed Tom Reeg, the CEO of Caesars Entertainment, during a recent earnings call. “With CES coming back … [it] should all be extremely positive for room rates and occupancy in the market in ’22 and ’23.”
Rolls-Royce had a small presence highlighting its new Phantom II on the concours green this year. During dinner at the Wynn Las Vegas on Oct. 28, Martin Fritsches, the president and CEO of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Americas, spoke about how successful he felt Miami’s F1 race was for the brand and its clients, despite the fact that Rolls-Royce does not have an F1-affiliated race team. The company is already planning how best to maximize its impact in Las Vegas for the one-two punch next year of the concours and F1 combined. It will offer 10 to 20 client-experience packages with starting prices of around $10,000, a spokesperson confirms.
“It makes total sense for us to be in Las Vegas,” Fritsches says. “Our clients are here, so we are here.”
With additional reporting by Chris Palmeri.
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