As you can probably guess, the granddaddy is New Year’s Eve weekend, when 340,000 visitors roll into town for fireworks and gambling. Super Bowl weekend runs it a fairly close second, pulling in 307,000 tourists – and comparably heavy wagering activity. Among regularly scheduled events, Electric Daisy Carnival would be third, drawing 200,000 attendees. The Las Vegas Sun reports that NASCAR races bring, on average, 120,000 fans to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Consumer Electronics show is another big draw, luring 170,000 businesspeople to the Las Vegas Convention Center. The SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) automotive show is another magnet in the trade-show sphere, bringing 140,000 people to town. The National Association of Broadcasters show just misses the six-figure mark, drawing 98,000 attendees.
The Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority measures March Madness in occupancy percentages, not head counts. This year the March 6-7 weekend packed in 93.7 percent occupancy and March 13-14 drew a hair more, with hotels at 94.2 percent occupancy. In early March 2014, the confluence of the NASCAR Kobalt 400 and the West Coast Conference basketball tourney generated 99 percent occupancy. A week later, 98 percent of hotel rooms were filled when the Pacific-12, Western Athletic and Mountain Conference tournaments converged upon Las Vegas. Divided between MGM Grand Garden Arena, The Orleans Arena and the Thomas & Mack Center, respectively, that was one heckuva lotta roundball.
The X factor in this year’s tourism calculations is the debut of Rock in Rio (May 8-16), to be held across from SLS Las Vegas on MGM Resorts International’s custom-built festival venue. It’s built to hold 80,000 people a day. As of mid-March, MGM said it was on pace to sell 50,000 tickets a day. Demand appears to have slackened. The four-day event, which can hold 340,000 spectators has only sold 87,000 tickets to date and prices have been cut from $298 for a two-day pass to $169 for a single day’s admission.
STOP THE PRESSES! The figures have just been released for that MayPac weekend, which happened to coincide with the Kentucky Derby and a few other significant happenings, although they tended to be eclipsed by the so-called "Fight of the Century" and all its attendant parties, and according to the official stats, an estimated two million drinks were served to some 336,000 visitors, which saw hotels running at a 97 percent occupancy rate ... and a total of 1,360 private jets parked at McCarran, Henderson, and North Las Vegas airports.
