The Las Vegas Festival Grounds is an open-air venue on the

Las Vegas Strip The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard, Las Vegas Boulevard South in Clark County, Nevada, that is known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos. The Strip, as it is known, is about long, and is immediately south of ...

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

. It is owned and operated by

Phil Ruffin Phillip Gene Ruffin (born March 14, 1935) is an American businessman. He owns the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino and Circus Circus Las Vegas, Circus Circus Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, in addition to a number of other enterprises including hot ...

. The venue is located at the north end of the Strip, north of

Circus Circus Las Vegas Circus Circus Las Vegas is a hotel and casino located on the northern Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Phil Ruffin. Circus Circus includes the largest permanent circus in the world. It features circus and trapeze ...

. It is and has a capacity of 85,000 people.

History

From 1941 to the 1970s, the

El Rancho Vegas El Rancho Vegas was a hotel and casino at the north end of the Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, Nevada. It opened in 1941, as the first resort on the Strip, known then as part of Highway 91. It was located at what is now the southwest corner of Las ...

occupied most of the land. In 2007, MGM Mirage (later MGM Resorts International) purchased the El Rancho site from Gordon Gaming for $444 million. In 2014, MGM announced plans to develop the site as an outdoor music venue in partnership with

Cirque du Soleil Cirque du Soleil (, ; "Circus of the Sun" or "Sun Circus") is a Canadian entertainment company and the largest contemporary circus producer in the world. Located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul on 16 Ju ...

and

Ron Burkle Ronald Wayne Burkle (born November 12, 1952) is an American businessman. He is the co-founder and managing partner of The Yucaipa Companies, LLC, a private investment firm that specializes in U.S. companies in the distribution, logistics, food, ...

Yucaipa Companies The Yucaipa Companies, LLC is an American private equity firm founded in 1986 by Ronald Burkle. It specializes in private equity and venture capital, with a focus on middle-market companies, growth capital, industry consolidation, leveraged buy ...

. The project was primarily designed to serve as the site of Rock in Rio USA, a new biennial music festival. The venue was initially referred to as the City of Rock, named after its equivalent in Rio de Janeiro, the site of the original Brazilian version of the

Rock in Rio ''Rock in Rio'' is a recurring music festival originating in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It later branched into other locations such as Lisbon, Madrid and Las Vegas. Nine incarnations of the festival have been held in Rio de Janeiro, in 1985, 1991, ...

festival. The name was soon changed to the MGM Resorts Festival Grounds. MGM hoped to position the grounds as a site for festivals, concerts, and sporting events (such as

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

mixed martial arts Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on striking, grappling and ground fighting, inc ...

, and

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

) as a complement to its other venues in the area. The festival grounds made its debut in May 2015 with the Rock in Rio USA festival. Development costs for the site totaled $20 million. In October 2015, the MGM Resorts branding was dropped and the site was renamed to simply Las Vegas Festival Grounds. The renaming was part of an effort to downplay MGM's role in the venue to improve its marketability for third-party events and to brand the site as being part of Las Vegas's "community". MGM sold the property to Phil Ruffin, along with the neighboring Circus Circus hotel and casino, in 2019.

Events

The Rock in Rio USA music festival was held at the venue in May 2015, headlined by

No Doubt No Doubt is an American rock band from Anaheim, California, formed in 1986. For most of their career, the band has consisted of vocalist Gwen Stefani, guitarist Tom Dumont, bassist Tony Kanal, and drummer Adrian Young. Since the mid-1990s, they ...

Metallica Metallica is an American heavy metal band. The band was formed in 1981 in Los Angeles by vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrume ...

Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her vivid songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and wide media coverage. Bor ...

, and

Bruno Mars Peter Gene Hernandez (born October 8, 1985), known professionally as Bruno Mars, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is known for his stage performances, retro showmanship, and for performing in a wide range of musical s ...

. The festival was intended to be held biennially, but after disappointing ticket sales, plans for future editions of the event were quietly shelved. In April 2016, the Las Vegas Festival Grounds hosted the ACM Party For a Cause Festival on the weekend preceding the

Academy of Country Music Awards The Academy of Country Music Awards, also known as the ACM Awards, were first held in 1966, honoring the industry's accomplishments during the previous year. It was the first country music awards program held by a major organization. The academy ...

. In 2018, the

iHeartRadio Music Festival The iHeartRadio Music Festival is a two-day music concert festival held every year in September since 2011 by iHeartRadio along the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. From 2011 to 2015, the festival was held at the MGM Gran ...

relocated its Daytime Village stage to the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, moving from the Las Vegas Village. On November 1–3, 2019, the Festival Grounds held a music festival called Day N Vegas, which featured performances from rap and hip-hop artists. Major headliners included

J. Cole Jermaine Lamarr Cole (born January 28, 1985) is an American rapper and record producer. Born on a military base in Germany and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Cole initially gained recognition as a rapper following the release of his d ...

Migos Migos () is an American hip hop trio from Lawrenceville, Georgia, founded in 2008. The group was originally composed of Southern rappers Quavo, Takeoff, and Offset. Quavo is from Athens, Georgia; Offset and Takeoff were born and raised in Law ...

Tyler, The Creator Tyler Gregory Okonma (born March 6, 1991), known professionally as Tyler, the Creator, is an American rapper and record producer. He is one of the founding members of the music collective Odd Future. Okonma self-released his debut mixtape Bast ...

and

Kendrick Lamar Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (born June 17, 1987) is an American rapper and songwriter. Known for his Progressive rap, progressive musical styles and Social consciousness, socially conscious songwriting, he is often considered one of the most infl ...

. The festival was organized by Goldenvoice, known for organizing the

Coachella Festival The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (commonly called the Coachella Festival or simply Coachella) is an annual music and arts festival held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, in the Coachella Valley in the Colorado Desert. I ...

. The following month, it hosted the inaugural Intersect Music Festival, organized and sponsored by

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Amazon that provides Software as a service, on-demand cloud computing computing platform, platforms and Application programming interface, APIs to individuals, companies, and gover ...

. The Festival Grounds hosted the heavy equipment exhibition of the 2020 Conexpo-Con/Agg held at the

Las Vegas Convention Center The Las Vegas Convention Center (commonly referred to as LVCC) is a convention center in Winchester, Nevada. It is owned and operated by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. As one of the largest convention centers in the world, it h ...

, due to the construction of expansions to the facility. On May 14 and 15, 2022 the Festival Grounds held a music festival called Lovers & Friends headlined by Usher,

Ludacris Christopher Brian Bridges (born September 11, 1977), known professionally as Ludacris (, homophonous with 'ludicrous' in American English), is an American rapper, actor, record producer and record executive. Born in Champaign, Illinois, Ludac ...

, and

Lauryn Hill Lauryn Noelle Hill (born May 26, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, and record producer. She is often regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time, as well as being one of the most influential musicians of her generation. ...

. Day N Vegas 2022 was announced for September 2 through 4 but was canceled. The festival was going to be Travis Scott's first festival performance since the

Astroworld Festival crowd crush On November 5, 2021, a fatal Crowd collapses and crushes, crowd crush occurred during the first night of the 2021 Astroworld Festival, a music event founded by American musician Travis Scott that was held at NRG Park in Houston, Texas. Eight p ...

. On October 22–23 and 29, 2022, the When We Were Young festival was scheduled. The opening day was cancelled the day of the event due to high winds.

References

{{Coord, 36.1424, -115.1603, type:landmark_region:US-NV, display=title 2015 establishments in Nevada Buildings and structures in Winchester, Nevada Festival venues in the United States Las Vegas Strip Music venues in the Las Vegas Valley Sports venues in Las Vegas Event venues established in 2015