Hype Event Rings In Formula 1 Car Race In Las Vegas Saturday
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer
So this is Las Vegas, a big former horse town where mega-sports event organizers like the NFL and Formula 1 visit the desert to set up events like an NFL Draft back in April or Saturday’s F1 fanfest in front of Caesars on the Strip to hype a grand prix race a year from now.
For all the Election Day jiberish purveyed via endless TV commercials, few politicians have discussed ways to diversify Las Vegas’ one-trick pony tourism/entertainment economy that spikes and crashes based on the country’s economic temperature.
Las Vegas is a very big small town, run by a new group of titans of tourism and sports in the wake of the deaths of dealmakers Sheldon Adelson, Harry Reid and Tony Hsieh.
You have former concrete industry veteran Steve Hill running the local tourism agency called the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), which cut a three-year deal with F1 to stage the 3.8-mile, 14-turn grand prix.
Former Gov. Brian Sandoval’s economic development man, Hill was out at the F1 PR hype event at the race car paddock area off Koval Lane toast the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Nov. 18, 2023.
Local officials joined F1 promoters to paint the finish line. Later in the day, F1 closed the Strip at Flamingo Road for drivers to zoom their cars for the fans and for some free pub for next year’s Las Vegas Grand Prix Nov. 18, 2023.
They called it a “launch party,” but it looked like small mobs of F1 fans trying to figure out the walkways leading from the front of the Caesars property using the statues as landmarks.
The F1 open-wheel vehicles are small. They look like pinewood derby racers powered by rocket missiles, with fans obsessed with the technology of it all.
F1 fans will need to have cash.
Tickets start at an eye-popping $500 for the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
This event is being billed as a major international sports event for Las Vegas, so expect a lot of worldwide guests among the hundreds of thousands of visitors expected for the Nov. 18 night race event.
