Fixing the F1 void: Neon City Festival draws 180K to downtown Las Vegas

There was a rare sight along the Fremont Street Experience over the weekend: Tourists clad in Mercedes, McLaren, Ferrari and F1 apparel descended on the entertainment promenade.

It was a collision of cultures.

“The number of F1 jerseys and jackets that were out during the day, through the weekend, was huge,” Neon City Festival CEO Jeff Victor said in a phone chat Tuesday. “The (F1) event happens at night, so they were like ‘Hey, this is pretty cool, there’s a festival going on at the same time, so our eyeballs get filled with more fun stuff during our visit.”

The festival averaged 60,000 unique visitors per day and night, 180,000 total. That’s a 30-percent increase over those visiting downtown Las Vegas during F1 week in ‘23.

Designed as an alternative event during the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix, the first Neon City Festival was staged Friday, Saturday and Sunday throughout downtown. All three FSE stages and Downtown Las Vegas Event Center were in operation.

Alison Wonderland, Seven Lions and TroyBoi performed at DTLVEC. Russell Dickerson, the All-American Rejects and Neon Trees took over 3rd Street Stage.

That is just a sampling of the entertainment offered during the festival, which also presented ample Vegas F&B offerings, art installations, by Area15, and fireworks.

Victor is also vice president of operations of Circa Hospitality Group. The company is co-owned by Derek Stevens, a leading visionary behind Neon City Festival. All downtown properties have been on board as partners.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority contributed at $1 million grant to kick off the event. The FSE partner hotels added about $500K, revenue produced by the SlotZilla zipline attraction inside the FSE canopy.

NCF was created to help downtown hotels return business to at least average weekend levels during F1.

“Last year was just so bad, and all we wanted the festival to do in year one was get us back to kind of normal, a normal weekend level,” Victor said. “It it did that, and a little more.”

The exec said business at Circa’s departments were up anywhere from 20 to 35 percent over last year.

Organizers have said the first NCF would be the debut of an ongoing event. The festival is planned to run as long as F1 is held in Vegas.

“Just F1 can’t fill this town, and I don’t say that critically,” Victor said. “NASCAR alone couldn’t fill this town, with similar numbers. We usually don’t have weekends with just one thing going on. When NASCAR is here, there are many other things going on … That’s how you fill up 150,000-plus rooms.”

And, how you draw 180,00o to the heart of Las Vegas.

Top out

Carrot Top has called off his shows after his Dec. 27 performance, returning Jan. 27. Why?

“Sex-change operation,” the entertainer born Scott Thompson texted Wednesday. “If you wanna see me perform still as a dude, make sure you see me soon.”

A bunch of laughing emojis accompanied that text. For real, he said “just taking an extra week off from my normal January break. All is good.”

Tease this …

A Las Vegas producer and multi-talented performer and TV-show host are working together on a fun, new production designed for Vegas. Early stages. Huge potential.

Your VegasVille Moment

I pulled into the City of Las Vegas parking garage for the Carolyn and Oscar Goodman mayoral sculpture and happened upon a gentleman parked on the same floor: Richard Bryan, the former Democratic governor of Nevada (1983-1989) and ex-U.S. Senator (1989-2001).

This visit was a bit of a homecoming for Bryan, to a building he doesn’t recall fondly. His family’s first Las Vegas home was on 3rd Street and Lewis Avenue, just to the north of today’s City Hall annex.

“It was a dreadful, two-story apartment,” said Bryan, who lived in the dwelling from age 4 1/2 to 6. “It wasn’t like we were in danger of freezing to death or anything, but even at age 4 I knew it was dreadful.”

The Bryans moved to a home in the Huntridge neighborhood, a 1,000-square-foot home he said was “like a mansion, in the nicest subdivision in town.” That was in October 1943, when Huntridge Theater was being built. The theater was finished a year later, and little Richard went to his first matinee movie (he remembers it being a Laurel & Hardy flick), which he thought cost 14 cents.

It was actually 25 cents.

“So I had to panhandle, one penny at a time, to get into this movie,” Bryan said. “I did it. I got the 25 cents. But I hated to raise money then, and I hated all my entire political career. I still do.”

Cool Hang Alert

Sax great Jimmy Carpenter plays the OG Sand Dollar Lounge on Polaris and Spring Mountain at 10 p.m. Friday. Jimmy always has the blues, and you will too. No cover. And as always, try the pizza.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.