LVCVA head admits F1 race didn’t match attendance of ’23 event
The Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix didn’t draw as many people to Las Vegas as the initial run in 2023, but Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority President and CEO Steve Hill still considered it to be a successful event.
In an interview following Tuesday’s LVCVA board meeting, Hill said the event’s planners would meet in future months to make plans to make next year’s event better.
While economic impact studies haven’t been completed, Hill said it’s clear that the event continues to put Las Vegas in the international spotlight, which bodes well for future visitation.
“There are no economic impact numbers out yet,” Hill said. “They’re certainly going to be lower than they were last year, we know that, and expected that. But it’s still a great weekend. It turns what is one of the slowest weeks of the year into one of the best weeks of the year. But from an economic standpoint, it’s not the same.”
Hill said he and several stakeholders — representatives of Formula One, Strip resort partners, Clark County’s Health and Public Works departments and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police — would have discussions about how the race could be made better in the future.
“One of the things that we’ve looked at is potentially adding people and equipment so that we can shorten the timeframe for set-up and the teardown,” he said. “Some of it is a little bit of the timing of when that happens. Mostly it’s just becoming more efficient with that set-up and teardown.”
Kate Wik, the LVCVA’s chief marketing officer, said early statistics show social media engagement and awareness outside of Las Vegas easily made F1 one of the city’s most successful events. More than 100 events and activities in addition to the race — non-race experiences, F1 team activations and daytime and nighttime parties among them — generated interest beyond the competition.
“Race week coverage was truly remarkable,” Wik told board members. “From Monday, Nov. 18 to Monday, Nov. 25, a total of 33,716 stories were generated, resulting in over 706 billion impressions. I said it last year and I’ll say it again, there is no larger global spotlight for the destination than F1.”
The stories and impressions had an estimated media value of $6 billion for the destination, she said.
Wik said she expects next month to have audited F1 numbers inclusive of global viewership statistics.
There was no discussion about complaints from local small businesses who say they’ve lost millions of dollars in sales due to inaccessbility to their properties during race week. During public comment, one speaker said he hopes the temporary bridge on Flamingo Road over the track would be widened to four lanes as it was in 2023, but not this year.
Tuesday’s session was the first for two new board members as the board changes about one-third of the membership as a result of election results and new appointments.
New Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley attended, replacing former Mayor Carolyn Goodman, a board member for 12 years. Also attending for the first time was Allegiant Travel Co. CEO Greg Anderson, replacing former Allegiant Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Scott DeAngelo, who resigned in September.
In a future meeting, new representatives will be added from the City of Las Vegas and the City of Mesquite, where former Councilmen Cedric Crear of Las Vegas and Brian Wursten of Mesquite were not elected.
Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.
