The Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix - An Event Producer's Perspective

I did it. Last week, I went to the first-ever Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix.

OK, technically, it wasn’t exactly the first. For two years in the early 1980s, there was a Caesar’s Palace Grand Prix held in a casino parking lot. It was one of the least popular circuits in the sport's history due to it's lack of character and the brutal physical demands it placed on the drivers.

What I just attended in 'The Entertainment Capital of the World' was the premier street circuit race, a globally anticipated event as part of the recent resurgence of the sport in the United States. This resurgence began with the introduction of the Austin Grand Prix a decade ago, followed by the Miami Grand Prix in 2022, and now Las Vegas. The sport's growing popularity is partly due to the Netflix series 'Drive to Survive,' which offers an engaging behind-the-scenes look at the action and drama of Formula One, Formula 1, or as it’s also officially known now, F1.

So, why would I go to an F1 race?

First of all, I am a huge F1 fan. I used to watch races with my dad while growing up. I have tremendous respect for the drivers and vehicle constructors. I love the combination of engineering, sportsmanship, strategy, science, and spectacle. Every race track has its own unique layout and set of challenges, and the weather is unpredictable. Each city and event brings its own character and culture. It also doesn’t hurt that there are dozens of handsome young men with international accents driving the hottest of hot rods at speeds reaching over 200 mph in exciting venues all over the world. What’s not to love?

Secondly, I have spent a lot of time in Las Vegas over the past several years. Formula 1 coming to Vegas has been the talk of the town and of the F1 community. The buzz was contagious. There is only one chance to see something for the first time, especially an event poised to be as epic as this one.

But mostly, as an event producer with 20 years of producing Burning Man - responsible for an annually recurring temporary city of 80,000 people - and some of the largest street fairs in San Francisco, along with numerous conferences, events, brand activations, and moonlighting at other festivals for fun, I saw the complexity and scope of the Las Vegas Grand Prix and I was absolutely compelled to go see for myself how it went down.

Just to give you an idea of how complex it was, here are some details about the event:

• The track was just over 3.8 miles, running through the streets of Las Vegas including a 1.2-mile stretch right down the Strip, aka Las Vegas Boulevard. It was surrounded by lighted casino signs, video billboards, and fountains. Another section hugged the diameter of the newly opened Sphere. There were 17 turns per lap, the race ran for 50 laps, and the top speed was 212 mph.

• Each day, the streets of the track had to be opened for regular vehicle traffic at the crack of dawn. They were then closed again in the evenings and made ready for a night of racing activities.
• Starting on a Wednesday, the preliminary events and the race spanned four nights and some had pretty late start times. This schedule was chosen to optimize the glamorous backdrop of the Strip, and the newly opened Sphere, as well as enable race fans from Europe and overseas to catch the action live.
• There was an opening ceremony, 2.2 practice sessions (more on that in a minute), one qualifying session, one Grand Prix, and a closing ceremony.
• A bit of light rain started almost exactly on cue at the moment the opening ceremony began. The first night was chilly and wet, and the others were chilly and sometimes windy. In between sessions, guests would explore the various fan attractions, grab food and drinks included with the ticket, and huddle around propane heat lamps.

• The opening ceremony was 30 minutes. It was full of lights, lasers, fog machines, drones, and fireworks and featured performances by John Legend, Tiesto, Steve Aoki, Journey, Andra Day, Bishop Briggs, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Kylie Minogue, Nile Rodgers & Chic, the Blue Man Group, J Balvin, Keith Urban, and will.i.am.
• Throughout the week, there were other performances by Swedish House Mafia, Major Lazer, A-Trak, Cirque du Soleil, and Martin Garrix. Donny Osmond sang the U.S. National Anthem.
• Ten ‘zones’ were spread around the nearly four-mile track, each located at different points. Four of the zones featured large, arena-sized grandstands, while the rest catered to various VIP and club experiences, as well as private suites. Each area had gated entry, hospitality services, massive video screens, and access to fan experiences, merchandise stands, and entertainment stages.

• Hotel shuttles were provided for the 8,000 guests who had tickets to the paddock area.
• There were 34 different hotel partnerships with room and race ticket packages.
• It is estimated that over 315,000 attended the events over the four days.
• Fans were in town from all over the world. I met people from the UK, Canada, Bahrain, and throughout the U.S.
• It is estimated the event provided over 7,500 job opportunities.
• The Grand Prix contributed $1M to local nonprofit organizations and generated several million in sales tax. This revenue will be distributed to local schools.
• It was anticipated that the event would have an economic impact of over $1.25B.
• Mile and miles of fencing, traffic barricades, and cement jersey walls were deployed along the racetrack, in fan areas, accessways, and on nearby streets. Some of the jersey walls were borrowed from the Miami Grand Prix. That's a long and heavy haul for those of you into transportation and logistics.

• Over the past two years, at a cost of over $500M, Formula 1 purchased land and constructed a permanent paddock and pit garage building, which spans the length of three football fields. Additionally, they erected several temporary stages, grandstands, and pedestrian bridges, and installed fences, trusses, lighting, and barricades along both sides of the entire length of the track.

• The setup and installation of the temporary elements took six months to prepare for the race, and will likely take two months to remove.

So, how did it go? From an event producer’s perspective, I’d say it went really well. Of course, I couldn’t be everywhere or see everything, but I did dive deeply into all the nights of programming. I sat in the main grandstand across from the pits and paddock building, so I witnessed a lot of the main action and logistics. Overall, the spectacle was indeed spectacular, the operations ran smoothly, the logistics seemed well-managed, the staff was friendly, and the fans were clearly enjoying themselves. That said, there are a few areas of contention or potential improvement that I think are worth noting.

The most common question I get is concerning the events of Thursday night when the first two practice sessions were scheduled. The initial session, which began at 8:30, lasted all of nine minutes. This sudden halt was due to a manhole cover being dislodged by the powerful downward force generated by the cars speeding past. The incident led to damage to two vehicles: Esteban Ocon's Alpine and Carlos Sainz's Ferrari, the latter incurring around $1M in damages to the vehicle, along with a brutal penalty that pushed him back 10 spots on the starting grid. This was due to strict regulations on the quantity of equipment allowed to be used throughout the season. Consequently, the entire 3.8-mile track had to be thoroughly inspected, and a substantial effort was made to reinstall and secure every manhole cover.

This problem has occurred at previous Grand Prix races, including as recently as 2019, and poses a significant danger to drivers. One might expect protocols to be in place specifically to inspect street tracks for this. It remains unclear whether there were initial attempts to secure these covers beforehand and this one failed, or if this was an oversight prior to the race. Regardless, this could be considered a collective failure between the Las Vegas Grand Prix producers, the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) regulatory body, and the teams and drivers who all meticulously inspect the track. Hopefully, they have all added this to their checklists for future events in Vegas and elsewhere.

The second practice session that night was initially scheduled for midnight, then rescheduled to 1:30 am and later to 2:00 am. Amidst the cold and late hour, I was part of the dwindling crowd who waited, only to be informed around 1:15 am that the fan areas were closing for logistical reasons and we were required to leave by 1:30 am. The session eventually took place at 2:30 am and ran until nearly 4:00 am, fitting in an extended 90-minute session before the roads had to be reopened for morning traffic. The Grand Prix later issued a statement that cited safety, security, transportation logistics, and the need for hospitality workers to prepare for the next day as reasons for sending the crowd home. Considering the thousands of staff and officers deployed across streets, intersections, fan zones, gates, and grandstands, I’m sure the potential for accumulating massive overtime costs or dealing with union issues likely also played a role in this decision.

Many people have asked me if I plan to seek a refund for that night, given the cancellation and postponement of the practice sessions. My answer is no. There were other forms of entertainment and activities in the fan areas to explore. With fewer people around, the queues for selfie stations, driving simulations, and food and drinks were short. Besides all that, as an event producer, I understand that cancellations are a possibility in such events, just like I knew that it might someday rain at Burning Man as it did this past year. It’s also likely that in the Terms and Conditions of the ticket purchase agreement, there is a paragraph that essentially says “We’re going to do our very best to put on this event for you, but despite our best efforts sometimes shit happens.”

As I was leaving that night, and every night actually, I noticed a large group of 50 to 75 “Ticket Operations” staff gathered at the entrances. They were all milling around waiting, not working, but also apparently not free to leave. Here’s why that caught my attention. There is no reason to be paying a full team of ticket scanners to be on duty until the wee hours of the morning. They weren’t serving as security. Most guests had arrived 5 to 6 hours earlier. The majority had already left, with few likely to use any late-night or re-entry privileges. Most of that staff should have been sent home earlier, with only a small crew and some security left monitoring each gate.

The biggest issue I saw was on Friday night, or more accurately very early Saturday morning, after the qualifying session, which started at midnight and ended around 1 am. This is one of the most exciting sessions of the race week, the one that determines which position the drivers will start on the grid, so it was very well attended.

I waited a while after the session ended, then I joined thousands of others exiting the grandstands. I headed towards the usual route I had used for days, which was through a tunnel under the Paddock. When I got there, I found it closed. As did many others, leading to confusion and complaints as a huge crowd backtracked through another crowd, and everyone was redirected to a different, already overcrowded exit.

People were now in a crowded situation, squished, and feeling their personal space and sense of safety and autonomy diminished. I’m actually pretty good in crowds, but I know people who don't do well in them. Unexpected encroachment into someone's space and unwanted contact with others can set off weird reactions. Especially if it’s late, people have been drinking, and find themselves in unfamiliar territory.

As an added factor, the reroute added a mile or two of additional distance to walk, through several blocks of a dark and chaotic rideshare area, along challenging dirt and rock paths, and in the opposite direction many of us were trying to go. It felt like we were in some sort of Hobbit movie on a month-long grueling quest.

Crowd management is practically an art form. Ingress and egress of events and gatherings are a science and a social experiment. When it goes well, you see a slow and steady movement as people get to where they are going without incident or aggression. When the ‘rules’ are changed without prior warning or communication, and there is a significant unexpected burden added to their journey, people start to get agitated and anxious, which can spread quickly in a crowd, and that can lead to unpleasant incidents. I didn’t see any incidents occur, but there were multiple moments when my spidey senses were on high alert due to the tension in the crowd.

For what it is worth, the following night after the main race event, the tunnel was back open again, and it was back to being a smooth exit.

However, the bar operations that night were another challenge. On the night of the race, with the full audience in attendance, the lines for drinks, particularly right before the race started, were exceptionally long. Non-alcoholic beverages like water and soft drinks were included with our tickets, but alcoholic drinks required separate payment. The problem is the lines for all kinds of drinks were combined. Those of us who simply wanted water had to wait in line behind others ordering far more complicated mixed drink cocktails.

While I understand that operators might not prioritize the experience for 'free' drinks, they could have streamlined the process by separating the lines for cans and bottled drinks from those for mixed cocktails. Many people who wanted to buy a drink initially changed their minds when they saw the lines. This means lost revenue. I would also recommend considering a selection of pre-mixed drinks for quicker service and perhaps establishing one or two premium bar areas for those willing to wait for specific mixed drinks. Fortunately, although it was really close, I did manage to make it back to my seat in time for the start of the race, which is undeniably one of the most thrilling parts of the entire event.

Another detail caught my eye late Saturday night as the grid was being prepared for the closing ceremony. Crews were pushing segments of the mobile stages and another large piece of infrastructure, resembling big grey scaffolding wrapped in tarps, on an industrial cart. The procession passed the audience packed along the entire 3-football field length of the paddock, down to the grid area. This stood out because these elements looked like ugly unfinished set pieces, and out of place in a spectacle that was otherwise adorned with lights, vinyl wraps, LED signs, and promotions on every available surface. Given that these mobile stages are covered in LED panels and have their own power sources, they could have been activated with fun effects or race footage. This would have integrated them into 'the show', especially during such a crucial moment in the event's programming.

I can't complain too much, though, because while that was happening, the three podium drivers were being transported around the track in a Rolls Royce (complete with fiber optic ceiling) to the Bellagio. There, a custom fountain and light show had been orchestrated to the Formula 1 theme song. That was a nice touch, and something that could only happen in Las Vegas.

Throughout the week outside the fences of the racetrack, over a dozen team fan experiences and official Las Vegas Grand Prix activations were scattered around casino lobbies and retail centers all over the Strip.

These included vehicle showrooms and displays, race simulators, helmet art collections, an auction by Sotheby’s, a Netflix golf tournament, reflex speed tests, t-shirt customizations, driver appearances, an exclusive preview of the movie “Ferrari” coming out in late December, augmented reality cocktail specials, signature haircuts, merchandise and fashion pop-ups, and the opportunity to drink out of a racing shoe. There were also celebrity chef appearances and private events galore.

The race itself? It was brimming with action - exciting maneuvers, overtakes, penalties, safety car deployments, multiple drivers leading the race for extended periods of time, and there were several major moves in the final laps. The drivers enjoyed the circuit. The media enjoyed the mystery and uncertainty around a new track coupled with a star-studded event. Eventually, three-time World Champion Max Verstappen won the race, which is a familiar outcome these days. He had to work hard for it though, and this was one of the most unpredictable racing events of the whole year. The fans enjoyed the dynamic, exciting race and all the related spectacles.

I tip my illuminated checkerboard producer hat to Renee Wilm, the CEO of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, and her team of female leaders. Their planning, construction, and excellent execution delivered one of the most anticipated sports and entertainment events in recent history.