A rising EDM star with an adorable signature hit that’ll get your heart pounding right in the face.
A country music prime mover whose total sales exceeded the Mexican population – by 10 million.
A group of once hedonistic hard rockers whose frontman may never forgive him for helping make star-spangled board shorts in the 90s.
Illenium. Garth Brooks. Guns N ‘Roses.
What does this trio have in common – aside from oversized fan bases?
All three will perform at the Allegiant Stadium for eight weeks from Saturday when Illenium names the venue.
“The stadium has always been a dream of mine,” explains Illenium. “When the pandemic started, it was kind of like, ‘What’s the craziest thing we can come back to? What is the biggest statement and the coolest thing for our fans? ‘”
Three stadium appearances in less than two months is a large number for any market. Bear in mind that it happens in a city that this kind of oversized show hasn’t happened since U2’s sold out Sam Boyd Stadium in October 2009.
With tons of Vegas residences home to some of the music industry’s biggest names and becoming a festival target market that hosts some of the biggest EDM, hip hop, punk, rockabilly and heavy music festivals in the country annually hosted, the city is synonymous with the concert experience like the blackjack table.
With the opening of the Allegiant Stadium, one could argue that it is the final piece of the puzzle to cement Vegas as the live music and events capital.
“There were artists, bands that were reluctant to play in Vegas because they are traditionally stadium bands, or there were bands that preferred to play in a stadium and couldn’t,” said Kurt Melien, President of Live Nation Las Vegas, which promotes both the Brooks and Gn’R shows. “And now, with such a high profile venue, we’re in a position to bring these artists to the city of Vegas.”
It comes at a significant cost: $ 750 million of the $ 2 billion Allegiant stadium was funded by taxpayers’ contributions through a hotel room tax increase. This investment has to pay off with an expanded calendar of events.
“I think it will expand our options a lot, and it already does,” said Steve Hill, chairman of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority. “It was really a driving thought process to think about the decision to pay an increase in room tax to make this happen. We just didn’t have a venue that could host the biggest events in the world, and that was a pretty big gap in our offering. “
Hole supposedly filled.
“The stadium itself was probably the last bit we needed to just host large events,” said Tick Segerblom, Clark County commissioner, who was a Nevada state senator when funding for the stadium was voted on in 2016, Me Looking forward to having the Democratic National Convention here one day and things like that. I can’t imagine anything we can’t do now. “
How the first show at Allegiant Stadium came about
The man who became a superstar with an album about “Ropin ‘the Wind” found it even harder to lasso the first appearance at Allegiant Stadium.
Garth Brooks was originally supposed to inaugurate the Allegiant Stadium with a concert in August 2020.
The show did phenomenal business from the start: 65,000 tickets were snapped up in 75 minutes when they went on sale in March 2020.
But COVID-19.
The concert was postponed to February 2021 before being postponed again to July 10th.
And then an EDM star hit Brooks all the way.
Illenium, aka Nicholas Miller, was originally booked for this year’s Life is Beautiful festival in September.
He also conceived a special one-off “Trilogy” show that focused on his first three albums – “Ashes” (2016), “Awake” (2017), “Ascend” (2019) – where he dedicated a separate set to each one.
“I worked with Illenium and its manager and toured them through Allegiant last August,” said Bobby Reynolds, senior vice president of AEG Presents Las Vegas, who is co-hosting the concert. “We were just trying to find the right time for it. He wanted to take his offer from Life is Beautiful and perform at this festival, and we would pick up the stadium when we could pick up the stadium. “
After getting a first look at the venue, Illenium began watching the star-studded weekend in Vegas on July 4th, as well as other big names like comedians Dave Chappelle and Joe Rogan and pop superstar Bruno Mars in the City were.
“We have always loved Vegas as the central hub and knew about the weekend and how great it should be,” said Illenium of the stadium appearance during the period in question. “We looked at it and it kind of put us under its spell. We were very inspired when we were there for the first time. “
And so he turned to Reynolds on July 3rd.
“I’m like, ‘What ?! This July 3rd? Dude, you’re crazy, ‘”Reynolds recalls. “I started thinking about it and Chappelle was on offer, Bruno was on offer. I was like, ‘Wow, this is going to be a really big week in town, maybe we can hold on to it.’
Although Illenium was signed to play Life is Beautiful, festival director Justin Less welcomed the idea of the stadium concert, with Life is Beautiful coming on board as a co-promoter.
“From our point of view, it was an artist’s dream to do this show. We want to support that, ”says less. “On the other hand, we knew that there was a big initiative by the city of Las Vegas to send a signal to the world that we are back and open. So we said, ‘We’ll do this.’ “
The deal came about quickly: the talks started on a Thursday; the show was announced the following Tuesday.
“In all honesty, it became a reality overnight,” says Illenium.
Of particular importance is that the concert is an only-in-Vegas event as opposed to a traveling production.
For Allegiant Stadium, it’s one thing to make Vegas a permanent part of the stadium tour.
But the venue also highlights the city’s appeal as a target market for this type of one-off event, which may add strength to the stadium’s concert calendar beyond touring and draw fans to Vegas for unique productions not seen anywhere else.
Illenium’s box office receipts have reflected this.
“Sales were good through the roof,” says Reynolds. “How, through the roof, well.”
Big venue, big event schedule
Hey, let’s not forget the soccer guys and all the guys and gals in spandex body slaming their utterly vascular compatriots into oblivion.
While concerts are an important part of the stadium’s early itinerary, other major events are also on the agenda, such as the sold out soccer championships of the 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup Finals and the WWE SummerSlam, both in August.
Yes, the stadium was built to be the home of the Las Vegas Raiders – as was that of the UNLV soccer team.
But with the Raiders only playing 10 home games a year and UNLV six, it was really the concerts and live and corporate events that allowed Allegiant Stadium to be considered a financially solid endeavor – at least on paper.
Because of this, Segerblom initially voted against public funding of the stadium because he questioned the merits of helping build a house for a very valuable NFL franchise with taxpayers’ money when events other than soccer games could be the bigger driver of sales.
“I didn’t want the football team to be the beneficiary of what I think will be the more important part of it, namely the concerts and the like,” he explains.
When stadium planners started forecasting how many events would be held at the venue each year, only about a third of them were pigskin.
“When we originally modeled the stadium, we had 16 soccer games and then 30 other events,” explains Hill. “A third of those 30 other events were corporate events – there are a lot of big companies in town that are coming and attracting tens of thousands of people and we thought, ‘Well, they’re going to have events there.'”
Live music didn’t play too much of a role in these early discussions.
“Really, we didn’t put very many concerts into the projection for the stadium – maybe two or three a year?” Hill says. “Now we see that concerts will play a bigger role than we originally thought.”
With three shows in 60 days, in addition to the other events listed above, the stadium is kicking off quickly on schedule.
“I think we have a pretty good chance of getting to the 46 events in the next 12 months, even if the corporate events are one of them,” predicts Hill.
Melien notes that enthusiasm for the venue has been strong so far.
“We get more incoming calls than expected asking about the stadium,” he says. “It’s definitely resonating outside of our local market and reaching key players in the industry.”
Of course, a venue like Allegiant Stadium is defined, at least in part, by its size.
Just as big in this case?
What this size represents.
“I think the city is now prepared for any kind of show that every artist in the world wants to do,” says Less. “When we know we have the basics and the logistics of what Las Vegas can deliver from a hospitality perspective, it’s a great destination for a music fan and a great place to go for an artist with all goals games they want to play. I think we can say with confidence that we have the chance to be the live music and live events capital of the world. “
Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @JasonBracelin on Twitter and @ jbracelin76 on Instagram.
