Learning from Las Vegas: Round 2 | Planning for Activation and Transformational Projects

Learning from Las Vegas is a famous book in architecture studies about post modern architecture

WRT my point about governments doing things and charlie's counter that mostly it's not about governance but growth independently of the local government, even in blue states, there's a great article, "From Sin City to America’s sports capital: Las Vegas is transforming itself again. What do the glitz of Formula One and the Super Bowl mean for the city’s future – and for the workers building it?," in the Washington Post about how Las Vegas is leveraging sports as another way to further activate the city, by keeping adding attractions.

The Sphere, created by Madison Square Garden Company, is an entertainment venue just east of the Las Vegas Strip. (Bob Leal/Courthouse News)

In the past few years the Raiders NFL team moved there, The Sphere attraction opened ("The Sphere mesmerizing Las Vegas months before opening," Courthouse News Service), and the Oakland A's baseball team just got approval to follow the Raiders ("The Oakland A's are relocating to Las Vegas after MLB owners approve the move," NPR).

Around six years ago, the Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey team launched, in an arena that was built by the private sector before there was a commitment by the NHL.  This past summer, the team won the Stanley Cup.

Williams driver Alexander Albon, of Thailand, drives during the final practice session for the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix auto race, Friday, Nov. 17, 2023, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Then there's Formula 1.  Not my thing, but it's the thing for enough people, especially rich people.  

The Post article is great about how it came about (also see "Tickets, times, transportation and community outreach among issues F1 must fix in Las Vegas," AP).

There's a great sentence about LV being the city that always says yes. 

It’s construction noise, but it’s also the latest last gasp of a city that always says yes, the sound of Las Vegas, after a century of wagers, going all-in on perhaps its biggest gamble ever. 

It's related to my point about transformational projects action planning including a willingness to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves, that work within the framework of a creative master plan, about taking advantage of serendipity.

But it's also relevant to my point about how destinations usually need constant refreshment and management to remain interesting and relevant.  

Wrt hotels, LV is the king of building, demolition and rebuilding of constantly larger hotel-casino projects.

This is an issue with Baltimore's Harborplace on the Inner Harbor ("Initial plans for Harborplace to include residential tower and retail, commercial space," WBAL-TV).  

What does a Louisiana seafood restaurant concept have to do with the Chesapeake region?

It was cool in the beginning, then became a place mostly housing chain establishments.  The Baltimore riots didn't help.  

Nor did the company that bought it (and lost it through foreclosure) which owns/ed similar types of "festival marketplaces" ("Rouse and Festival Marketplaces" from Merchant of Illusion: James Rouse, America's Salesman of the Businessman's Utopia) but really doesn't know how to run them except through imposing homogeneous retail, taking away anything special about the property.

A new owner of Harborplace aims to revive the site.  But the problem with capitalism is that other property owners elsewhere in the city, like Canton, continue to invest in making their places great, making it that much harder for Harborplace to compete--although it has a waterfront location, which should trump any other location.  

But at the end of the day, the problem is not unlike that faced by Eastern Market or H Street in DC--there are lots of alternative destinations.  Like many other cities, Baltimore has too much in the way of developable space, making it hard to focus.

Similarly, other festival marketplaces like Faneuil Hall in Boston and the South Street Seaport in New York City ("Seaport District reinvents itself with dining, shopping and a dose of history," NY1 News) have the same issues of the need for refreshment.  Over time, local visitorship drops off.  And those places have a lot more visitors and residents than Baltimore.

Note that scale wise, the Fremont District, different from the big hotel-casinos on the strip, with more older buildings and a more human scale, is probably more analogous to festival marketplaces than the LV Strip or adding super large scale attractions ("A new tourist destination to revitalize a declining downtown," UNLV thesis).

U2's residency at the Sphere is incredibly successful ("U2's First Batch of Shows at the Sphere Generated Nearly $110 Million in Ticket Sales," Billboard.)

Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Bram van den Berg of U2 perform during opening night of U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere on Sept. 29, 2023 in Las Vegas. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation

From the article:

U2 wrapped the first leg of the U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere residency on Nov. 4 with unprecedented box-office results. According to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, U2’s 17 Sphere shows in Las Vegas grossed $109.8 million and sold 281,000 tickets. 

Opening night at Sphere was Sept. 29. U2 played another show the next night, 12 more in October and three in the first week of November. The gross and attendance figures average out to $6.5 million and 16,500 tickets per show. The average ticket price across all shows was $390.97. 

U2 is scheduled to play eight more shows in December, kicking off on Friday night. There are 11 more dates lined up between Jan. 26 and Feb. 18. The 19 shows on the books could generate another $120 million, pushing the residency to about $330 million in less than five months. Only Dion’s A New Day… would remain ahead in terms of all residencies in Boxscore history.

The only thing is few bands can pull this off.  U2 is one.  Although LV has tons of successful concert residencies.  They tend to be in much smaller spaces, and much less multimedia intensive.

Conclusion.  Even though Las Vegas has gambling, big conventions, and almost 40 million visitors per year, it doesn't take its position in the leisure, hospitality, convention, and gaming business for granted.

When it comes to destination development and management, Las  Vegas is a city of constant redevelopment and reinvention  ("Robert Lang, who helped reshape Southern Nevada’s economy, dies at 62,"Las Vegas Review-Journal). 

It is an outlier when it comes to urban management, which in Las Vegas is a "partnership" between the private sector, the city and other nonprofits like the tourism board, the State more generally, as well as the Nevada Gaming Commission.