Long before the first quarter was flung off the Excalibur bridge into the moat, before the D had a Sigma Derby, or for that matter was even the D, the majority of the Competition Council was lobbying Bernie Ecclestone hoping F1 would return to Las Vegas. It took a $4,600,000,000 sale of F1 to Liberty Media, A Netflix series, and arguably Covid19 to create enough interest in F1 for Las Vegas to finally have another shot at hosting the F1 circus. Of course, we knew with all of the interest the usual Las Vegas premium would be applied to the cost of everything surrounding the F1 experience. Want to see an NFL game in Las Vegas? It will cost more than seeing a game in Los Angeles. Hockey? More expensive than say, Dallas. But Las Vegas itself adds value to attending those events in Las Vegas over Las Angeles or Dallas.
Planet Hollywood is right in the middle of the F1 action. Turn 11 is right in front of PH and should be a very attractive place to see cars actually passing each other. Cheapest room only package for PH, $4234.57. No ticket to stand in one of the many ticketed areas, no guarantee of being able to see any of the race. Yes, not all of the ticketed viewing areas have been identified, so more tickets will likely be released. The Competition Council thinks the Paris/PH parking garage may be the best place to watch from outside of the likely to be highest priced DRS zone ticketed areas. Theoretically you would be able to watch either Las Vegas Boulevard or Koval just by walking across the top of the lot. But what is the price of entry going to be? $1000 per? With tickets to what we like to call piss poor not prime for watching racing action areas going for $500, we expect the cheapest tickets with sightlines to the DRZ zones will be $1000 and up.
There is hope, though. Average TV viewership for F1 in 2022 is about 1.4 million per race. At 2 people per room, it would take 10% of the average weekly US viewership attending the Las Vegas F1 race to fill up all of the over-priced rooms. There is a chance room rates will fall as the event gets closer. We also see a lot of places to view the race which aren’t being sold yet. Could the promoters be smartly selling only the high-end tickets now to let the ticket brokers scoop them up and be planning to sell more reasonably priced tickets later? Maybe? We hope? Yes, this is our optimism kicking in, no we really don’t think we’ll be able to attend the Formula 1 Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix in November 2023. But we do have hope. With Miami and Las Vegas on the 2023 US F1 schedule we hope to see tickets for the Formula 1 Aramco United States Grand Prix fall to reasonable levels. Attending the Austin, Texas F1 race will be our goal for 2023. We’ll plan on a visit to Austin, and we’ll drop an extra $100 into our favorite Megabucks machine, $10,000,000+ may just be enough for a front row seat at Cabo Wabo Cantina at Planet Hollywood.
