Las Vegas Grand Prix’s New CEO/Prez Gaining Better Handle On F1 Race With Lower Ticket Prices, Year-Round Presence, Community Connections
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Emily Prazer jokes — or at least we hope she’s joking — that she’s eating chocolate and not sleeping these days in her first year as the top executive of the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Prazer was promoted to Las Vegas Grand Prix president and CEO in March after serving as the road race’s chief commercial officer, overseeing everything from ticket sales to corporate partnerships.
LVSportsBiz.com spoke with Prazer Wednesday about how her first year as the event’s chief executive is going and about the race’s evolution after a very rocky inaugural event in Nov. 2023. The F1 event in Year 3 is Nov. 20-22 in Las Vegas, with the two-hour race starting at 8 PM Las Vegas/Pacific time after it started 10 PM last year.
Here are the top points from our conversation.
Prazer acknowledged it was a “mistake” in Year 1 in 2023 to “cater only to the super premium” market at the Las Vegas Grand Prix after the F1 race was greenlighted in March 2022 for a November 2023 debut. Only a month ago, LVSportsBiz.com published a story addressing whether F1 should have started the Las Vegas race in 2024 and not 2023 to properly prepare for an event that disrupted commerce and traffic in the Strip corridor like no other before it.
So, Prazer re-evaluated the market and re-calibrated the ticket prices. In Year 1 in 2023, the average F1 ticket price in Las Vegas was $1,667, according to the F1Destinations.com website. It was the most expensive average ticket price on the F1 circuit that year.
Now two years later in Year 3, the Las Vegas F1 prices are lower as Prazer learned Las Vegas locals did not want the higher ticket prices with the inclusive food and beverage and prefered a cheaper ticket that did not include food and drinks. Prazer did not have an average F1 Las Vegas ticket price for 2025, but race communications director Joslyn Garcia, sitting in on our interview, noted there are various all-in price points:
- General Admission: Starting at $469.68 (Flamingo Zone)
- Grandstands: Starting at $1,115.23 (Lewis Hamilton Package)
- Hospitality: Starting at $2,827.35 (Club Paris)
Generally speaking, F1 ticket prices have dropped 25 percent to 40 percent across the board in 2025.
In light of declining Las Vegas tourism numbers this year, the Las Vegas Grand Prix has worked with its partner, the government tourism LVCVA agency, to beef up promotion for the F1 event in Las Vegas at Formula 1 races in Mexico, Canada, England, Germany, Netherlands and Australia.
F1 has extended its sponsorship deal with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) through 2026 and 2027 thanks to a $20 million payment from the LVCVA. That’s public money the LVCVA is spending.
The F1 race in Las Vegas is very different from the other two F1 races in the U.S. in Miami (at the Miami Dolphins NFL stadium off the Florida Turnpike far from Miami Beach) and in Austin, Texas, outside the city center. Both of those F1 races had race developers helping finance the event, but the Las Vegas Grand Prix was a true “F1 start up business,” Prazer said.
“This whole thing is us. We have not invested in other locations like the way we have invested in Las Vegas,” she said. “This is not just F1’s baby. This is our shareholders’ baby.”
The Las Vegas Grand Prix’s operations have grown to a staff of 150 full-time employees for a three-day event in the Strip corridor that is being converted into a closed 3.8-mile track. Prazer described the F1 Las Vegas event’s annual budget as in the “multiples of hundreds of millions of dollars.” That’s on top of the $500 million F1 spent on building its race pit building and buying the site’s 39 acres at the northeast corner of Koval Lane and Harmon Avenue east of the Strip.
Year 1 was a rough opening year for the Las Vegas Grand Prix. It prompted four lawsuits from businesses that claimed in legal papers they lost millions of dollars in revenue from the race’s traffic and customer accessibility problems. And even after a Clark County “debriefing report” on the inaugural F1 race that was far less critical of the race than the opinions of most locals and Strip property workers, even Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft had to say of the 2023 grand prix in Las Vegas: “There were winners and there were losers.”
But this is 2025, and all but one of the lawsuits have been settled and resolved. Plus, the hotels on the race track are financially benefitting. “The resorts like us. We’re pushing foot traffic during a slow weekend,” Prazer said.
Hotels with race-front viewing areas are Ellis Island on Koval Lane, Venetian, Bellagio, Caesars and Hilton Grand Vacations. F1 has a ticketed zone at the Sphere.
Prazer also said Las Vegas Grand Prix has matured into an event that serves locals year-round with back-to-school freebies and Karting events for kids at the central pit building. The Las Vegas race is also collaborating with the NHL Vegas Golden Knights on merchandise and the WNBA Las Vegas Aces on a female racing program, F1 Academy.
Just Thursday, F1 Las Vegas dropped this item to email list member:
The race is also working to build its track of light mounts, tall metal fencing and concrete barriers overnight and in stages around the 3.8-mile route.
Prazer, like race boosters, likes to talk about the F1 event’s economic spending in Las Vegas. But the problem with determining an accurate economic net gain number from the event is that while the race draws higher-spending tourists, the race’s traffic and mobility problems in the Strip corridor also keep visitors away, especially non-fan locals who avoid the Strip. What about all those losses to the Las Vegas market? How much money is lost because of the event? The LVCVA and race boosters don’t have numbers for that.
But in Year 3, Prazer said the race is gaining traction.
“People understand the product,” she said.
The new ticket strategy is giving locals more options and value, while the race is trying to reduce the inconvenience of road and lane closures, she said.
“I have a lot more understanding of the jigsaw puzzle of putting on this race,” Prazer said.
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