No Bidding: What Happens At LVCVA Board Meeting Includes R&R Partners Staying As Public Tourism Agency’s Ad Company For $530 Million
By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Billy Vassiliadis did not miss this LVCVA meeting Tuesday morning.
His R&R Partners ad agency, Las Vegas’ biggest tourism ad and marketing company, won more than a half a billion dollars in contracts from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA).
There was no bidding for this contract. No Request For Proposal. There was a RFP in 2021. But not now.
A RFP is not required for professional services, LVCVA Chief Marketing Officer Kate Wik told the LVCVA board. It’s up to Wik to hold these ad and marketing companies accountable.
LVCVA CEO Steve Hill explained no RFP was needed because the LVCVA “didn’t have the intention of making a change.”
The LVCVA board approved a $309 million, three-year deal for R&R Partners to be the ad and communications agency of record in 2027, 2028 and 2029 and another $221 million under an optional two-year extension.
R&R buys media ad spots at sports events, stadiums and TV broadcasts promoting Las Vegas as a tourist destination.
R&R also did the recent Fabulous Las Vegas ad campaign in response to sliding tourism in 2025.
Vassiliadis has owned R&R Partners since 1994 and stepped away from running the ad company on a daily basis last year, serving as chairman. In 2003 R&R created the “What Happens Here, Stays Here” ad campaign.
LVSportsBiz.com greeted Vassiliadis after the meeting. He declined to comment and called over his CEO, Michon Martin, who said she would come back to comment after leaving to talk with someone else. But Martin did not return to talk with LVSportsBiz.com.
During the meeting, Wik explained why these companies were needed.
“Marketing is constantly evolving,” Wik said. “Las Vegas operates in real time.”
She said the LVCVA annual marketing budget is usually between $100 million to $140 million and it’s currently $127 million for this year.
The board also approved accompanying tourism marketing deals with Grey Group, Social + Special Project Partner Agency; YKONE, Social Partnerships; Frequency Pictures, Project Agency; and Heat & Mind Strategies, Research Agency.
“Not everything should be done in-house,” Wik said.
Here are the spending amounts approved:
Three board members asked questions and they were pleased with Wik’s responses.
The LVCVA board chairman Jim Gibson, a Clark County Commissioner, said these the ad agencies have been around for a long time with the LVCVA and he quipped that his comments sounded like a “word salad.”
The LVCVA spend hundreds of millions of dollars on sports events and sponsorships. Wik gave a lengthy presentation on WrestleMania 42 in April.
The LVCVA said the preliminary 2027 budget is $700 million.
“We have a large budget. We have a large mission,” Hill said.
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