Las Vegas Festival Grounds — Local services in Las Vegas

Review of our 4/27/2024 visit which will have notes on both the grounds and the Sick New World festival. First and foremost, the security was well-staffed, super helpful, attentive, approachable and professional. The grounds were always clean, we never saw overflowing garbage, and staff constantly picking up the few things that people were too lazy to throw into a garbage can. Staff was also constantly attentive to festival patrons and passing out waters all throughout the day to whoever needed them. Onto the festival…VIP was not a “VIP” experience by any means starting with doors/entry as we were there early in the dedicated line and GA got in faster. Many folks missed starting acts because of this. Doors should have opened earlier for everyone to provide ample time to actually be present for openers, and doors should have opened 30 minutes earlier for VIP as many other festivals have done. It was clear early on that this festival was vastly oversold, it was a cluster of sardines. Example, to get from the Gold (main) stage even through the VIP area to one of the smaller stages took over an hour(!) it was basically just another section of GA. Cell/wifi service was virtually nonexistent about an hour or so into the festival and even staff stated “we throttle the service to ensure no one posts to social media before us” wow, really?! That’s fing ridiculous. That all said, the artists were awesome to see as always, and it was a great lineup. Recommendations for the future: 1) don’t throttle service…forget about socials posts, people need to have the ability to contact each other when separated and/or emergencies, 2) move to at least a 2-day event to allow more bang for the buck to the ticket buyers, 3) make VIP an actual VIP experience…even consider an ultra VIP or top tier package even more exclusive at a premium like most other festivals do, 4) lastly, hire better sound engineers/technicians as for the Spiral stage in particular, there were numerous issues to many artists throughout the day. I do commend SNW for having a highly extensive post-festival survey that was sent to solicit feedback and metrics; I would recommend that the same amount of care into so many aspects of the festival be felt as the questions in...

Not sure what to attribute to the Festival Grounds as a music venue versus the company who ran the event I attended there. With that in mind, here are my thoughts: The entire grounds are covered in pavement, which heats up and then reflects heat back at your from the ground. If you sit down to rest, you may feel hotter than if you were standing due to heat from the pavement. Pavement is also obviously more unpleasant to stand on all day compared to something softer. Covering the pavement with turf mitigates these issues to some extend but not completely. At the event I attended, I would estimate that less than 30% of the grounds were covered in turf. The non-turf areas were unbearably hot a 90+ degree day. The more eastern bathroom building on the north side of the grounds creates a choke point for foot traffic. At one point, we were stuck in this spot for over 10 minutes as people were pushing to go in all directions at once. I appreciated that the bathrooms were staffed and kept clean and stacked with toilet paper. Also the restrooms have a large number of stalls. It's nice that events here don't have to depend on porta potties, since those smell horrible and are generally unpleasant to be in. Free water refill stations were present and definitely essential. Not sure if that was through the venue or the festival runners. Location is very convenient through to the strip, walkable to many hotels. If everyone having to exit through the same area is a venue rule, that needs to change because it's ridiculous. It took us 40 minutes just to exit the grounds because 70,000 people were being filed through a relatively small gap and exit at other spots was not allowed...

I can't recommend this venue at all, really. I guess it's big? Yay? But there is virtually no shade anywhere on the entire site, and the very few covered places get full and you can't even get through to get under the shade without having to cross the obstacle course of people sitting or laying on the ground because of the lack of seating. There are a few picnic tables but not nearly enough. I have mobility issues and I cannot stand for very long, especially not in the blazing sun, and there was pretty much nowhere to go to escape it. The few times I managed to carve out a spot in the covered area, I had to sit on the ground. My aforementioned mobility issues made it verrrrrry difficult to get back up. They had misters going at the top of the covered areas but virtually none of the mist made it down to the people. It seemed like a waste of water, honestly. I didn't use the bathroom so I don't know what that situation is like, and honestly I'm glad I didn't have to find out. Basically, I can't recommend this venue to anyone who is heat intolerant or has mobility problems. You will be stuck in the sun with nowhere to sit, or possibly under a pavilion area with only the floor for sitting....