Why Haven’t Las Vegas GP Tickets Sold Out Yet? Has the Sin City’s Hotel Industry Crisis Engulfed F1?

When the Formula 1 grid visited Sin City last year to give the fans a taste of what was to come. After investing almost $700 million in the Las Vegas Grand Prix, including the permanent paddock building, everyone including the drivers, organizers, local business owners, and Formula 1 management themselves expected the tickets to sell out in record time.

However, it looks like Formula 1’s return to Vegas is suffering from reliability issues of its own, with one hurdle after another being launched the organizer’s way. First, it was the locals objecting to Liberty Media’s tactics to curb unpaid viewership from the pedestrian bridges, then it moved on to the hour-long traffic jams which sometimes tripled employees’ travel time to their workplaces in the Strip. With the Las Vegas Grand Prix aiming to be the apex US event of the sport, things are not looking good!

What is the Hotel Industry Crisis happening in Las Vegas?

It’s been three years since the entire world stood still after the COVID-19 pandemic took over the world, and Las Vegas was no exception. However, the entertainment capital of the world finds itself amidst a looming crisis. According to Fox Business, some workers believe that the city is growing too rapidly for hospitality to keep up with the increase in demand.

With new businesses opening every single day, local businesses are struggling to maintain a full working staff, and with events like the Las Vegas GP and the annual New Year’s Eve celebration attracting numbers in the hundreds of thousands, the workers have rightfully demanded salary hikes as well as stability in their contracts to help the hotels stay running and keep customers satisfied.

Tensions have been rising ever since the 15th of September when a contract extension that happened in June for roughly 35,000 housekeepers, bartenders, and other servicemen – working at MGM Resorts International, Wynn Resorts, and Caesars Entertainment – expired and left the workers without renewal opportunities or a hike in wages.

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The New York Times reported just two weeks later that the Local Culinary Workers and the Local Bartenders Union had authorized a strike against all the major resorts along the strip to address the upcoming sports events and the pressure it would create on the service industry without contracts being in place. While the concern for a living wage is an extremely important one, the workers might not have to worry about serving too many customers during the Formula 1 weekend, because the ticket sales are a story the organizers are desperate to change!

Why haven’t the tickets for the Las Vegas Grand Prix sold out yet? 

When the ticket prices to witness the grand event were revealed, it was the biggest shock for fans who were planning to watch the grid light up the Strip. With the grandstand tickets for a 3-day pass priced at over $2500, it’s no wonder the ticket sales were moving slowly. However, ticket prices are not the only factor!

Unfortunately for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, there are bigger concerns for fans than just the pricing of the tickets. Whilst the sport had been gaining traction ever since Drive to Survive aired in 2019, its Mojo has worn off for many fans, and Max Verstappen’s dominance is not helping either. With the title already wrapped up, there’s not much in terms of unpredictability at the circuit.

Pressure from the residents is not helping Formula 1’s case either, as they have come under criticism from various entities about the traffic jams and disruption in daily life that the construction of the event is causing. To understand just how exorbitant prices are even after the price cuts, we can take a look at the ticket prices at launch and compare them to current resale prices, which reveal a sad reality.

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According to oversteer48, there are over 10,001 tickets that are still unsold across the East Harman and the Vegas Sphere grandstands! All things considered, when a fan can spend a mere $670 to witness the Belgian GP from the Gold 3 Grandstand at Spa Francorchamps, why would they choose to go to the Vegas GP, where only a Saturday pass costs more than double, at $1500, not to mention the traffic jams, hospitality strikes, and fluctuating prices!

The reason behind F1 slashing Las Vegas GP ticket prices and Hotels Dropping their rates

The Las Vegas GP is expected to bring in close to $500 million for Liberty Media and over $1.3 billion for the Sin City economy. However, due to the low demand generated by the record-breaking grandstand prices and Verstappen’s utter dominance, there are a lot of tickets that have gone unsold. Unfortunately for the resellers who purchased tickets in the hopes of flipping them to make a profit, they find themselves scrambling to get rid of the tickets at prices much lower than the asking price!

While brokers and hustlers are met with price limits that bar them from selling it at an amount lower than what’s set by F1, they have resorted to third-party apps at a price significantly lower than the organizers. According to oversteer48, Saturday-only tickets for the race have seen price cuts by around 45% on average!

But it’s not just ticket prices that have been cut and left the fans fuming. Tons of enthusiasts who had booked hotels early on regret their choice because the prices have been cut to bring in other demographics. The Las Vegas Convention President, Steve Hill was estimating “about half of the hotel rooms in Las Vegas” to be filled with people coming to watch the race. However, with the other 50% expected to occupy Las Vegas tourists who are there for Sin City itself, the prices were not cutting it.

Oversteer48 reported that the the cheapest rooms in hotels on the strip like Paris, and Venetian were slashed by approximately $500 a night. One of the largest drops is from Delano, a short distance from the circuit, which posted a price lower than the price that was advertised last year by a thousand dollars! According to 8NewsNow, officials stated that the price cuts were to allow non-race-going tourists to continue with their travel plans.

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It looks like Formula 1’s return to Las Vegas after 40 years is as windy an affair as ever. With ticket and hotel prices sending fans scrambling to get the best price, only time will tell if it’s all worth it, once the lights go out.