F1’s promise to be less tough on Las Vegas in its second year

Despite some teething issues — Formula 1’s first Las Vegas Grand Prix on and around the gambling haven’s iconic Strip was both an on-track and commercial success.

After several hiccups during practice, the race turned out to be entertaining, and the marketing and hospitality-driven hype around the race ensured the event generated more tax revenue than any other event in Las Vegas history, with the economic impact estimated at $1.5b. It turned what had been one of Vegas’ quietest weekends of the year, one week before Thanksgiving, into one of its rowdiest.

But that commercial success, a significant part of which flowed back to the Strip’s giant casinos and F1 itself, also came at a price for many of Sin City’s residents.

Locals faced nine months of disruptions as F1 commissioned road resurfacing, built an entire paddock on the plot of land it acquired adjacent to the Strip, and then closed off some of Vegas’ main arteries for the race itself. The numerous construction projects sent commuter traffic into disarray and also came at a huge cost for several local businesses who saw their properties largely cut off.

Some of them, like Battista’s Hole in the Wall and the Stage Door Casino, were unlucky to be based on Flamingo Road on the inside of the circuit, being pincered in between the Strip and Koval Lane, both of which form part of the 3.8-mile track. They jointly sued the Las Vegas Grand Prix, citing “wrongful interference with business rights” and demanding compensation for lost revenue, which they claim amounted to approximately $5 million over the course of 2023.

Tonya Markin, the co-owner of Battista’s Hole in the Wall, told the Nevada Current some local businesses were suffering from “F1 PTSD” when the build-up started for next week’s second running, fearing they will see “another big drop in our revenue.”

F1, which promotes the race itself, is well aware of the trouble it caused in year one, with Greg Maffei, the outgoing CEO of F1 owner Liberty Media issuing an apology for the disruption brought to the city after last year’s event. For year two, organisers have promised a smoother build-up, which started much later than last year as a lot of the groundwork had already been done in 2023, including the one-off repaving process.

Steve Hill, the CEO and president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), the destination’s marketing organization, said reducing disruption to a minimum was one of the event’s main priorities this time around.

“We had eight months building a circuit and lining the barricades and all that, so it was an amazing accomplishment that Liberty Media and the Formula 1 folks did, but it was tough on the city,” Hill acknowledged.

“It’s a tough race to put on, down one of the busiest streets in the world. We didn’t want to have to do that to the community on a repetitive basis, and we knew we weren’t going to have to because we don’t have to build a new roadway every year. […] We learned a lot from last year and the grand prix learned a lot from last year, and this year has really been very smooth and has not been disruptive.”

It’s the communication breakdown over 2023 that seems to pain residents the most, leaving many in the dark about the level of disruption as work on the circuit progressed and fluctuated week to week.

Hill explains, “It was a pretty remarkable achievement to go from making an announcement on March 30 2022 to 17 months later having a race. There was a lot of communication but there was a lot of learning along the way. It was not a linear process that first year, it just couldn’t be. We thought one thing this week and then two weeks later we thought, ‘that was wrong and we need to change that’, so there was a lot of spaghetti being made that everybody was experiencing.

“The first five months of the congestion last year was just building the road, the circuit itself. That was really disruptive, it’s a hard thing to do. It’s hard to communicate that construction process because it’s moving. Most construction projects it’s like, ‘don’t go there for the next two years’. Well, we were two weeks here and two weeks here, that’s a very difficult thing for people to react to.”

A lot of the confusion, according to Hill, came down to organisers learning by doing as they tried to bring the event to life in a compressed timeframe, which caused “U-turns” in the process. To better accommodate and inform local residents this year, organisers implemented an interactive map that allows anyone to navigate construction, barriers or closures up to and on race weekend. Little adjustments and solutions like the map, puts the event much closer to achieving a balance, where organising the race ticks enough boxes for the wider community.

“This year the community knows more [on] what to expect,” he said. “It needs to work for everybody, it needs to work for the businesses, the sponsors of the race, the resort community and it needs to work for the community itself. This year I think we are much closer to that balance than we were last year.”

Another point of criticism was the notion that most of the economic benefits stayed within the Strip’s resort and casino community, with little planned outside the direct environment of the circuit to support the rest of the area. That’s changing this year with an NFL game on Sunday between the Las Vegas Raiders and the Denver Broncos at Allegiant Stadium, on the south side of Las Vegas Boulevard.

“None of us were sure what the city was going to look like, [or] what would be possible last year and most of the city outside of the race, went dark,” Hill added. “This year we have a Raiders game and a partnership with the Raiders and the race. On Sunday there is a concert series downtown to complement [it]. It will be Adele’s last weekend [of her residency] in Las Vegas too. So, the properties have brought entertainment back outside of the circuit area and all of those things will elevate that weekend too and I think it will help elevate the race as well.

“They have added [10,000] more general admission tickets, which I think responds to a demand that showed up last year and we heard a lot about, but was really too late to do anything about. There is a fan experience this year, that is a free experience for both visitors and community alike. That helps build both goodwill in the community and an additional fanbase in the southwest, which is important for the race going forward.”