Art at Neon City Festival to include 60-foot-long ‘iceberg’

Neon City Festival organizers plan to bring an art and music installation previously seen at Burning Man, Las Vegas planning records show.

The inaugural music and food festival to be held in Downtown Las Vegas between Nov. 22-24 was coordinated by the area’s casino operators and tourism officials to draw visitors to the area during the Formula One Grand Prix weekend.

According to special event permit applications filed to city officials, a 60-foot-long “art car” with pyrotechnics and a DJ stage will serve as some of the music and art installations in the Fremont East Entertainment district. The car, called Titanic’s End, debuted at Burning Man in 2022, according to its website.

Festival organizers declined to comment Friday morning. Operators of Titanic’s End did not respond to requests for comment.

The headliners for the festival include Neon Trees, Alison Wonderland, Russell Dickerkson and Seven Lions. Rapper Macklemore was also expected to headline the inaugural music festival, but he was dropped after controversial comments during a performance.

The festival is not affiliated with F1’s race week plans. Hospitality operators partnered this year to create the free, all ages event to draw incremental visitation during the racing event to be held Thursday, Nov. 21 through Saturday, Nov. 23. Some operators have said the visitation and spending from last year’s inaugural event did not reach their part of town.

“We think that last year there were a lot of underutilized assets, underutilized hotel rooms that didn’t get sold and therefore a lot of bartenders that didn’t get tipped or blackjack dealers at an empty table,” Circa owner Derek Stevens told the Review-Journal in an August interview. “We think this is something that’s going to bring a lot of new people to Vegas.”

In addition to downtown resort-casinos partnering through funding, in-kind contributions and activating their player databases, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority sponsored the event for $1 million approved in July.

Beyond the art car, the special event applications suggest a culinary area will be held in the Downtown Event Center, where 10 food trucks and five “open-air” food vendors were requested. Additional food trucks were requested around the Fremont Street Experience.

Security checkpoints will be around the Third Street Stage on the pedestrian mall for the headlining events, according to the application’s site plans.

Tentative road closure plans have also been filed to Las Vegas officials. City spokesperson Jace Radke said more detailed road closure notifications will be sent out closer to the event.

Some tentative road closures include:

• Fourth Street and Casino Center Boulevard under the Fremont Street Experience canopy. Tentative closures will be Friday-Saturday, Nov. 22-24 from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m.
• Third Street from Carson Avenue to Bridger Avenue and Bridger from Casino Center Boulevard to Third Street. Tentative closures will be Friday-Saturday, Nov. 22-24 from 1 p.m. to 12 a.m.
• Fremont Street from Las Vegas Boulevard to Sixth Street. Tentative closures will be Friday-Saturday, Nov. 22-24 from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m.

Contact McKenna Ross at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on X.