Paul Szydelko
A "festival without fences," the inaugural Neon City Festival in downtown Las Vegas is designed to be an alternative attraction during the second Formula 1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix Nov. 22 to 24.
Few details were available in the summer when the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority approved a $1 million sponsorship agreement to the free, all-ages music, art and culinary event. What the festival will look like has since come into focus.
The All-American Rejects, Plain White T's, Seven Lions, Alison Wonderland, Russell Dickerson and Neon Trees will be among the headliners. About two dozen acts, including hip-hop, country and electronic dance music artists, will appear on four outdoor stages after 5 p.m. each night.
The festival will take place well north of the F1 track, at spots like the Fremont Street Experience, the adjacent Fremont East District, the open-air Downtown Las Vegas Events Center, the Arts District to the southwest and the Strat Hotel, Casino & Tower.
Art exhibits, laser shows, strolling entertainment, pop-up performances and fireworks are also planned. Special 3D-appearing graphics will be seen on the Fremont Street Experience's LED Viva Vision screen.
The Neon City Festival website has information on set times, stage locations, parking tips and other information as it becomes available.
Plentiful food choices
Taco trucks, empanada carts and sushi stands will be among the ambitious array of culinary choices.
Also sure to draw food lovers' attention: Here's the Beef's American wagyu sliders; Chi Asian Kitchen's dim sum dumplings, bao buns and barbecue pork; and Super Chill's sundaes, heat-pressed donut ice cream sandwiches and fruit smoothies.
A VIP tasting at Omaha Steaks' pop-up -- whiskey-grilled steak, filet mignon burgers, shrimp ceviche, crab cakes and a tomahawk carving station -- is also available for $100 per day.
Deals to be had
About a dozen sponsoring hotel-casinos will have room discounts, food and beverage vouchers and access to casino promotions.
For example, the Golden Nugget offers 35% off the best available room rate, free parking and a gift when booking online. The Strat is promoting packages that include 25% off room rates and shuttle service to Fremont Street. Complementary tower admission, buy-one, get-one SkyJump tickets and two tickets to the L.A. Comedy Club are among the perks from which guests can choose.
Allegiant Air is also offering $25 off flights of $250 or more to the city Nov. 20 to 25 with the code NEONCITY.
Why a free festival? And why now?
Neon City Festival creator Derek Stevens, owner of downtown's Circa, the D and Golden Gate (all with 15% off on room rates), says the inaugural F1 race last year was a "very positive component for Las Vegas."
But he said he believes there is room for improvement after months of disrupted local traffic and other negative impacts to set up the sprawling race for the first time -- and what turned out to be a low-occupancy weekend for hoteliers.
F1 weekend was "good for some, probably a very, very small amount of properties. It was bad for many -- whether it's employees, dealers, bartenders, restaurateurs, a lot of additional time for people coming to and from work. All these types of things. It was difficult," Stevens said in a recent interview with Travel Weekly.
"We do not want to be anti-F1; we want to be an alternative to F1," Stevens said. The way to make F1 better is to provide additional reasons for non-race fans to come while F1 is in town, he added.
No one event in Vegas can fill all rooms, he noted, and the city is at its best when multiple events appeal to diverse audiences. One weekend earlier this month, for example, featured a PGA tournament, a Nascar race and a country music festival.
"It doesn't mean that one is against the other. It just means that there's a lot of things going on," Stevens said. "And I think that in the first year of F1 there may have been a thought that this was such a big event that it was going to fill the city."
In addition to F1 and the Neon City Festival, the NFL's Las Vegas Raiders will host the Denver Broncos at Allegiant Stadium on Nov. 24.
The Neon City Festival will take advantage of existing infrastructure and be kept relatively cheaper to produce with no fencing or ticket-selling costs, Stevens said. It was coincidental that the Life Is Beautiful festival, a ticketed annual downtown event for a decade, will not be held this year, he said.
"You're not going to be getting Foo Fighters and U2 as your headliners, but you're going to get an unbelievable amount of value, where you're going to have a three-day free festival that's going to be something great for tourists," Stevens said.