Organizers of the Las Vegas Grand Prix say the race will be “back in the spotlight” in 2025 after a more subdued second race was held last year.
The first race on the iconic Strip saw a huge opening show on the grid ahead of the weekend, with Vegas investing heavily in other activations, but the early stages of the event were overshadowed by FP1’s track issues. After improving the track’s opening and closing times in its second year and adapting its ticketing model to provide more general admission, Las Vegas Grand Prix President and CEO Emily Prather said another eye-catching week is planned this year.
“We’re creating a buzz again,” Prather said. “I think what felt really good coming out of the second year was how well the event was run. I think we all know, it’s well documented, but this year we’ve really repositioned our ticket sales plan around and we’re on a really good pace towards selling out.
“Obviously, Las Vegas is usually like a last-minute market for all the tickets. People land and think, ‘Oh, what’s going to happen this weekend?'” But we proved what we need to do there by offering cheap tickets to locals and making it really accessible. And it was important to rebuild some of the programming and make sure the production values continued.
“We talk about it a lot, but Miami, you really know where you are. (Austin), you definitely know you’re in Texas. Las Vegas, we’re kind of known on the entertainment and production side, so I think you’re going to see Saturday night be pretty epic and have some different surprises in terms of what we’re doing on the post-race show.”
Prather said there is a big focus this year on creating added value in the city around the race itself, as other sports leagues such as the NFL and NHL have schedules on either side of the weekend.
“We ended up having a business summit, and we felt like this was almost part of how we wanted Las Vegas to feel like Super Bowl week. There was a lot of discussion about what we could bring. It’s not just the nightly entertainment, but we’re all there. So we built this business summit that we hope everyone can come and enjoy, and we’ll continue to build on that.”
“We’re going to have some stuff going on during the day. We’ve teamed up with The Sphere again so you can go see ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ We’ve got a Raiders game…It’s like the most incredible week. We’ve got a Raiders game on Monday and Sunday and a VGK (Vegas Golden Knights) game on Tuesday.”
“So we have the Raiders on either side, and Wednesday is our golf tournament again. This is what we’ve been doing for the last few years – a golf tournament at the Wynn called the Grid. Thursday is actually Liberty Investor Day, and then we have a business summit, and then we have free practice.”
“On Friday, we partnered with the amfAR Gala to allow all the big names to come to the paddock. So it feels like there’s something going on 24/7 and obviously the start times are earlier and it feels more compressed because of the F1 Academy, but it’s just the entertainment that continues from the moment everyone wakes up to the post-race party, the official party and so on.
“So we feel like we now have some confidence in the programming around our events and making sure we’re getting real value for money.”
