The Las Vegas Grand Prix was a smashing success for Sin City with at least one hotel chain reporting its highest-grossing ever during the event. Though specific numbers were not made available, MGM Resorts’ Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Halkyard told investors recently that, “It was the highest-grossing weekend for us, in hotel revenue, in the company’s history.”
Both critics and supporters of the massive event that took place across the Vegas Strip on Saturday, November 18 were not entirely sure that the race’s unusual format and 10 p.m. start time would make for a successful event. Those worries melted away once the race started and the event went off with a hitch.
As was always the plan, the event brought massive crowds to the Strip; crowds who hung around for the whole weekend spending piles of cash. Though Nevada’s tourism and gaming revenue stats for November haven’t been officially released, early estimates suggest that the whole event injected around $1.2 billion to the Nevada economy.
Las Vegas has been positioning itself as an event destination more and more recently with a bevy of concerts, athletic events and festivals filling its calendar every weekend. Halkyard marvelled at Sin City’s most recent perspective change in a recent press release saying, “When you think about other events that have happened in Las Vegas over the years, and in the scale of our company, that’s quite something to have a record weekend on what was otherwise the slowest weekend of the year. It met our expectations in terms of casino volume, food and beverage and, most importantly, the guests and our employees, I think, had a very good experience during the long weekend.”
With the advent of professional sports in Nevada, expect to see Las Vegas continue its efforts at promoting the city as a destination event for fans of all stripes.