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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
The F1 race in Las Vegas is eight months away in November, and the Las Vegas Grand Prix is getting a head start on hawking tickets despite opposition from businesses like restaurants and retailers that maintain the road race caused them to lose millions of dollars in revenues four months ago.
F1 Las Vegas contacted race fans to tell them there is one week to place a deposit to gain access to tickets for the Nov. 21-23 grand prix. The Las Vegas Grand Prix is pitching fans on making deposits for general admission, grandstands, private suites, shared clubs and luxury hospitality.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix sold the most expensive average ticket on the Formula 1 circuit last year, drawing criticism for the pricy tickets that were well more than $1,500. Plus, the Las Vegas Grand Prix also drew a black eye for promoting a special ticket deal for Las Vegas locals when the publicized ticket event was just a practice and not the actual race.
Las Vegas Grand Prix CEO Renee Wilm acknowledged that the inaugural F1 race in November created some first-year problems and that the race that was heralded by promoters as a lucrative economic plum for Las Vegas did not deliver big business for smaller hotels and valleywide resorts.
The race and its 3.8-mile course disrupted commerce and transportation like no other sports event in Las Vegas. Many businesses along the route lost money or saw less-than-usual revenues during the race event because customers had problems reaching their stores and restaurants.
A group of more than a half-dozen businesses are talking about filing a lawsuit against F1, the LVCVA tourism agency and Clark County in an attempt to recover their lost revenues.
The F1 race did help high-end hotels in Las Vegas. But unlike Super Bowl 58 on Feb. 11 that helped many hotels and businesses, the F1 race in November helped mostly upper-echelon hotels.
The grand prix here in Las Vegas is moving ahead with as business-as-usual approach in a market that gave them spectacular visuals.
Clark County has not granted the permits for the race, but that hasn’t stopped F1 from plowing ahead with ticket sales.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix has also hired form Las Vegas City Manager Betsy Fretwell, who will work on trying to improve community relations after many Vegas locals complained about the many months of disruptions and traffic jams caused by the road race.
Fretwell said during a Las Vegas chamber of commerce event in January that she might lift a page from the playbook of the Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee, which tried to involve metro Las Vegas in the NFL’s premier event with everything from tree plantings to more than $1 million in donations to local non-profits.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix is bringing back the Flamingo Road bridge that spanned Koval Lane for the F1 race in Vegas. It was removed before the Super Bowl in Las Vegas, but the bridge and other road race prep work will be returning in 2024.
Clark County commissioners were supposed to discuss the F1 race at a meeting last month, but staff pulled the item.
And a mere day after Clark County pulled the item from the county commission agenda regarding “Clark County’s involvement in future Formula One races,” the county released a statement that said, “The F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix race will move forward as planned this year November 21 -23.”