Fireworks light up the night sky above Electric Daisy Carnival on Monday, May 23, 2022, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, in Las Vegas. Participants get in the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the second day of the Electric Daisy Carnival on Saturday, May 21, 2022, in Las Vegas. Fireworks light up the night sky above Electric Daisy Carnival on Monday, May 23, 2022, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, in Las Vegas.
It all began last week, when an army of Rosie the Riveter, Betty Page and Arthur Fonzarelli look-a-likes stormed The Orleans with a toolbox of classic cars, classic threads and vintage rock ‘‘ n' roll, turning the gambling establishment premises into a boozy leisure of the "Happy Days" set at Viva Las Vegas, the most significant rockabilly event in the world.

It continues this weekend, when Y2K-era R&B and hip-hop fans end up being all starry-eyed underneath the stars at the Lovers & & Friends celebration and a new island and reggae music fest, Holo Holo, comes down, downtown.

To come: another new fest to show that nü ü metal has yet to grow old (Sick New World), the return of the Silver-Backed Alpha Male Gorilla of electronic dance music occasions (Electric Daisy Carnival) and the punk-rock-rager-to-end-all-punk-rock-ragers (Punk Rock Bowling).

From last weekend to late May, at least one significant music fest is scheduled to take place here each weekend, drawing an approximated total of over 600,000 fans.

Related: Your guide to Vegas' music celebration season

It's a picture of Las Vegas' amazing advancement into a music celebration location market, which now encompasses practically every style of music, covering K-pop (the recent launching of We Bridge), the blues (The Big Blues Bender), multi-genre mass gatherings (Life is Beautiful), emo and pop punk (When We Were Young), hitmakers galore (iHeartRadio Music Fest), more reggae (Reggae Rise Up), still more reggae (Reggae in the Desert) and heavy music of all stripes (Psycho Las Vegas).

According to a current report from ticket resale business Vivid Seats, Vegas ranks 5th among all U.S. cities with the most music fests within an hour's driving range at 14. That puts it above bigger markets like New York City, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Denver, to name however a few.

This has equated to some industry for Las Vegas.

Simply look at the dollars produced by the city's two greatest music fests alone.


Tamara Panek, of Chicago, dances while Autograf plays their set during the first day of the Electric Daisy Carnival at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Friday, May 20, 2022, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @ellenschmidttt

According to numbers provided by EDC, the occasion created a total economic output of $336.7 million in 2022. In 2019, the most current year for which figures are readily available, Life is Beautiful catalyzed $66.3 million in economic impact according to the Las Vegas Convention Visitors Authority. (Life is Beautiful organizers say that the occasion has actually had an economic effect of $400 million since debuting in 2013).

All this for a city that, just a little over a decade ago, was viewed as the reverse of a celebration hotbed.

To wit: In 2005, Superfly Productions and AC Entertainment, the companies behind Bonnaroo, introduced Vegoose at Sam Boyd Stadium in an effort to bring a big yearly tent-pole music fest to the marketplace.

It lasted 3 years before folding, even with prominent headliners like the Dave Matthews Band, Tom Petty, Rage Against the Machine and Daft Punk.

There was a chilling result from its brief life expectancy: When Insomniac Events and EDC creator Pasquale Rotella chose to relocate his business's flagship occasion here in 2011, it was seen as a major gamble - - even in a city asserted upon major gambling.

"There's one celebration, Vegoose, that people were talking to me about. They said that they even had Daft Punk, like the greatest electronic music act in the world, and that it was suicide and I shouldn't do it.

And yet, that's exactly what Las Vegas has considering that become.

" There's relatively no location hotter for live home entertainment than Las Vegas, and I think you'll see that with the music festivals," states Stephen Spiewak, an organic growth specialist at Vivid Seats. "Something that is particularly interesting about the increase of a lot of these new music festivals in the Las Vegas area is the variety of the leading festivals. When We Were Young, the iHeartRadio Music Festival, Lovers & & Friends - they're catering to very various demographics of music, however they're all actually popular. There's a music celebration for everybody in Las Vegas, it seems like."

Ciara carries out during the Lovers & & Friends music celebration on Saturday, May 14, 2022, in Las Vegas. (Chase Stevens/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @csstevensphoto

Constructing a foundation for music fests - - and losing lots of cash

" How do you return to regular life after this?"

Wondered a party lady in the crowd on the last night of EDC 2011.

Fair question.

What a whirlwind it had been up to then: 3 days and thirty-plus hours immersed in this cocoon of light and sound that was so surreal in its size and scope you almost wished to administer fact serum to your eyeballs to make certain they weren't lying to you.

When it was all stated and done, it felt like a watershed minute for EDC, an enormous success having actually drawn over 230,000 fans.

" Back then, losing $3 million was like losing $10 million," Rotella remembers. It was a huge hit for me."

More red ink would spill in 2012.

Still more in 2013.

Rotella knew that he had something, though.

" I felt, even after the (very first) show, that it was buzzing," he states, "that people who didn't go missed out, and that it was gon na grow into something.

" It's not going to happen overnight," he continues, "and it's not going to occur if you don't dream it? It's going to be a financial investment; it's going to be a long play. If it hasn't occurred before, and you're developing something new, you got ta stick with it."


Lil Jon, left, and Ludacris perform during the Lovers & & Friends music festival on Saturday, May 14, 2022, in Las Vegas. (Chase Stevens/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @csstevensphoto

Rotella did, selling a 50% stake in Insomniac to Live Nation for a reported $80 million in 2013 and soldiering on.

That very same year, Life is Beautiful debuted downtown and experienced comparable growing discomforts: The fest lost $10 million its first three years, before turning a corner and selling out beforehand for the first time in 2017.

That both of Vegas' biggest music fests got off to such tough starts financially, in spite of favored line-ups and appealing early presence numbers, underscores just how difficult a market this once was for developing a celebration brand name of any kind.

" We needed to inform people on what we were doing, who we were," explains Craig Asher Nyman, director of music, programming and development at Life is Beautiful. "It was among those things that was just bubbling, bubbling, bubbling."

What kept those bubbles from bursting like they had with Vegoose?

What allowed Life is Beautiful and EDC to demonstrate that this city could be a practical home to the kind of enormous, multi-day music fests that draw fans from around the world?

The answer lies within Las Vegas itself.


Joey and the Showmen perform in the crowd at the pool throughout the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans on Sunday, April 30, 2023, in Las Vegas. (Chase Stevens/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @csstevensphoto

A facilities for success

No last call?

Tom Ingram was in.

Flashback to 1996: the future creator of Viva Las Vegas has actually transferred to California from his native Britain intent on hosting a big rockabilly weekender there.

Thing was, there were constraints in his brand-new house state: namely, a 1 a.m. cut-off time for bands and booze.

So he began trying to find a various area.

" There's simply a group of people relaxing one evening, a couple of individuals were talking about bars being open all night in Vegas, and I stated, ‘‘ Did you state bars are open 24 hours in Vegas?" Ingram recalls incredulously." ‘‘ That's where I've got to do the weekender.' It was as easy as that."

In 1997, Viva Las Vegas debuted at the Gold Coast, literally rockin' all the time until dawn.

" We had about 1,200 individuals, we had about half-a-dozen cars and trucks, and we thought that was great," Ingram says. "It covered costs, so we didn't lose any money. And it just advanced from there."

Viva Las Vegas has actually considering that become Vegas' longest-running music celebration, having just recently completed year 26.

Ingram saw early on how appropriate Vegas was, infrastructure-wise, to hosting music fests like his, from myriad venues and meeting room offered on a single home to a relatively endless supply of hotel rooms. (There are more than 150,000 in the city).


Attendees cheer throughout the females & #x 2019; s swimsuit competitors at the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend at The Orleans on Sunday, April 30, 2023, in Las Vegas. (Chase Stevens/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @csstevensphoto

This likewise informed the thinking of the organizers for Punk Rock Bowling, which first concerned Vegas in 1999 as a bowling tournament with a few shows on the side prior to developing into a music fest at Sunset Station in 2010.

The occasion moved downtown the following year, taking advantage of the party-friendly environments.

" You go downtown, and then you never have to get in your car," says Shawn Stern, co-founder of Punk Rock Bowling. "You can stroll to everything, so you can drink and you don't need to worry about getting behind the wheel to go anywhere.

" There's everything you need down there and the festival website is a five-to-10-minute walk from nearly every hotel downtown," he continues. "Same with all the clubs. It's ideal."

Rotella, too, was drawn to Vegas in part by how visitor-centric it is.

" There's a plentiful quantity of flights," he keeps in mind. "The airport is close to the Strip. There's an abundant quantity of transportation to get you to the Strip. There's lots of hotels. There's lots of taxis.

" I think it makes sense," he continues of Vegas' viability for music fests, "however for whatever factor, it's not like when we did it, it popped off. Tim McIlrath of Rise Against performs during the first day of the Punk Rock Bowling music festival in downtown Las Vegas on Saturday, May 26, 2018. Why was Vegas as soon as dismissed as a doubtful - to put it slightly - market for occasions like his?

" I frequently joke that when we began doing Viva Las Vegas, all the entertainment in Vegas was aimed at people over 60 years old," he chuckles, referencing old-school entertainers like the previously mentioned lounge legend, who once dominated the regional live music offerings. The celebration grounds are packed on day three of Electric Daisy Carnival on Monday, May 23, 2022, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, in Las Vegas. Why is the roving reggae and island music festival that takes its name from said expression coming to Vegas after debuting in Northern California last year?

There's an intangible at play here as well, in the concept of Vegas as an excellent American
escape, a city posited presumed a lack of inhibition, which dovetails nicely with cutting loose at a big huge al fresco celebration a weekend." Las Vegas does such a remarkable task putting the visitors initially and making it all
about them and their experience, "Chairez contends. Possibly the greatest reason that Las Vegas has become a location market for festivals, then, is that the city is a destination in and of itself.