I was in Las Vegas in March of 2022 when the date for the long-rumored Formula 1 race was finally announced. I was sitting in Park MGM’s sportsbook in the middle of prep for the Final Four when the press release dropped, so as an MGM Rewards Gold member (thanks, Hyatt!) I immediately went to the front desk and asked how much it would be to book a hotel room for a weekend 18 months away.
I don’t know anything about auto racing, but friends in The 305 have told me F1 turns all of Miami-Dade and Very South Broward into a fun week with events and music and other things to do. I figured it might be fun to go! I’d even pay a bit of a premium for the experience!
“I’m sorry sir, we can’t offer you a room at this time.”
No problem, I’m sure they’ll open up capacity soon. So a couple weeks hence the tickets went on sale, and I jumped on TicketMaster to see how much. After being in the notoriously long TM waiting room, I got the chance to buy a pair of ducats for all sessions of racing with food and drinks included right in front of Bellagio. Sweet!
And then I go to check out and it’s $16,000 for a pair??
Well the joke is on the corporate gambling monoliths and the race organizers, because now I can book a 3.5-star room on the Las Vegas Strip this weekend for about $52 a night. And those tickets that cost as much as a decent used car? Now they’re under $1000 each and falling faster than my interest in attending the race.
Why? Because F1 has ruined a city I spend months a year in, one I resided in briefly years ago, and one I will always care about deeply. I’ve avoided Vegas for months because of the chaos this upcoming weekend has wrought. And the juice will not be worth the squeeze from what Formula 1 has done to a city full of workers and residents that had no idea what was coming.
The inconveniences have been well-documented, with Valley residents up in arms for months about preposterous commute times and startling inconveniences for a metropolitan area built from the ground up to handle the biggest crowds in the world. The repeated street resurfacing was part of it, forcing insanely long commute times for both visitors and employees along one of the nation’s most highly-trafficked corridors for months.
I was there for one of the first days of repaving in May, and it’s been basically non-stop commuter chaos ever since.
Las Vegas Strip getting repaved for F1 starting today, here’s the start-finish line. They’re going to do this three times between now and the race in November. pic.twitter.com/d3nqomx9l5
— Collin Sherwin (@CollinSherwin) May 1, 2023
But instead of placating the angry people that make Vegas go every day, F1 attempted to extort every bar and restaurant owner with a view of the track for $1500 per seat, or else they’d have their view of the public streets where the race is being held blocked. As any Vegas resident knows, the quality of the hospitality you receive in Southern Nevada is directly correlated to the kindness and respect (and tips) you give those that serve you.
The days of making local businesses offers they can’t refuse went the way of the single-deck 3-to-2 blackjack, Ace Rothstein’s gaming license, and a quality 99-cent shrimp cocktail. It was absurd to try and grift this kind of cash out of hospitality establishments, but they gave it their best anyway.
It’s been terrible for months for those in town every day with work or play on Las Vegas Boulevard and the surrounding access streets. The construction, scaffolding, blocked sidewalks and constant noise held the city hostage for months, and has made this event not worth the mayhem.
How many billions have been lost by people avoiding the tourist mecca because it looks so unrecognizable? Walking The Strip is a pastime treasured by visitors from all over the world. But how many people got a view like this on their first trip, and now will never return?
The final straw for many was cutting down the trees in front of Bellagio, which has provided shade and comfort to those watching the fountain show and walking the west side of the Las Vegas Strip for decades. That was a bridge too far. While the CEO of MGM Resorts admits the error now, and says the trees will go back in after the race, it’s indicative of what’s happened here.
I even saw some of the traffic effects myself from the back of an Uber while construction on the new F1 paddock was happening back in March. And it was because the city was awash in construction orange and barricades already.
Liberty Media, the owners of F1 who normally hire promoters for each race but chose to handle the Las Vegas Grand Prix themselves, finally apologized to Vegas locals yesterday.
“I want to apologise to all the Las Vegas residents and we appreciate that they have their forbearance and their willingness to tolerate us,” he said. “We’re going to bring something like $1.7bn of revenue to the area. So it’s not just for the benefit of fans who want to view. We hope this is a great economic benefit in Las Vegas. We hope this is the most difficult year with all the construction that went on and things will be easier in the future.”
Well if the projections were for $1.7 billion, let’s just say that’s not looking great if you can get a view of the race from your room for under $100 a night.
And even if that $1.7 billion is not an exaggeration (it always is), that will be needed to be measured against the losses both short-and-long term from turning a one of the wonders of the modern world into a speedway. The millions of people that missed a Bellagio fountain show, or the thousands of gondola rides at Venetian, or the volcano at Mirage (which isn’t long for this world anyway; let’s hope the new owners keep the best show in Beatles LOVE for as long as possible however).
Vegas is a state of mind and a feeling as much as place, and if your first trip doesn’t go well, it might be your last. When a city that promises you the world doesn’t deliver, there’s no amount of VIP suite dollars from one weekend that can make up for the decades-long damage.
Technically the agreement between Liberty and Clark County was originally for three years, but both sides then agreed to extend this for at least a decade. There are now rumors of three-year opt-outs and even a one-year opt out because of the epic disaster this has become.
It’s probably time for both sides to cut their losses, unless some sort of enforceable deal can be made where absolutely no pre-race construction outside of street resurfacing can begin before November 1 by either race organizers or the casinos. At least with a hard date for visitors and locals alike to know when their Vegas experience will be imperiled, the impact to the economy will be easier to quantify to see if this is worth it for all sides.
So whether you’re surviving the traffic or watching from home, if you’re an F1 fan I hope you enjoy this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. I’ll root for an exciting race, and having the city lit up at night for fans across the world will be a very cool visual.
But I hope it’s one that we never see again. Not without serious and accountable reforms for those that suffered the most to bring it to you.