As the Las Vegas Grand Prix returns this weekend, November 21 to 23, few people understand what it takes to host an event of this magnitude better than Jennifer Brisman. She’s the founder and CEO of VOW, an event orchestration platform that’s helped manage live productions for the Tony Awards, PFL MMA, and Saturday Night Live.
After producing more than 600 large-scale events, Brisman sees the Vegas Grand Prix as a case study in logistical coordination, scale, and economic impact.
A city becomes a racetrack — in record time
“It’s monstrous,” Brisman said. “They started in September, which is just a short amount of time for what they do.”
Las Vegas doesn’t just host the Grand Prix. It transforms itself. Streets become racetracks. Pedestrian bridges get re-evaluated for safety. Satellite events pop up at nearly every major hotel. And unlike events that are confined to arenas, the Grand Prix spreads through active tourist corridors and infrastructure never designed for racing.
“You’re retrofitting a city for a high-speed race,” she said. “It’s not like Monaco or Singapore, where the track grew up with the city.”
Safety and coordination come first
The race’s scale and speed create unique safety challenges. Brisman described how safety planning touches nearly everything — from protecting guests on pedestrian bridges to managing the risk of infrastructure failures.
This is the third consecutive year F1 has scheduled a Grand Prix in Las Vegas using city streets for the majority of the race circuit. During the inaugural race in the series in 2023 an infrastructure problem occurred eight minutes into the first Free Practice Session when a loose concrete frame around a water valve cover damaged Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz’s car. The practice session was halted while city personnel inspected and repaired every water valve on the circuit. More than five hours late, the scheduled second practice could finally be held.
Brisman described a pattern that occurs with massive, multi-year events, “Year one is about survival. Year two is stabilizing infrastructure. Year three is when you can optimize the experience.”
According to Brisman, behind the scenes, success comes down to real-time communication between agencies. “You need multi-agency coordination. Testing, testing, testing. Everything has to move fast — identify the problem, route it to the right team, fix it, test it, and go.”
The economics of yearly disruption
Despite complaints from residents about traffic and disruption, Brisman pointed to the long-term upside.
“It brings in nearly a billion dollars,” she said. “It unlocks tax benefits. It becomes economic regularity.”
Officials in Clark County, Nevada, estimated a $1.5 billion impact from the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix. For 2024, the LVGP organizers reported $934 million in revenue, a drop from the first year, but the F1 race still had the most significant financial impact on the region of the year.
Brisman compared the Grand Prix to other mega-events like the Olympics: “It’s a strain on the city, but when you do it every year, it becomes sustainable. You invest long-term.”
Some residents have even leaned into the opportunity. “People rent out their homes on Airbnb during race week. They capture a lot of income that way,” she noted.
Vegas is built for spectacle
Brisman credits Las Vegas’s dense hotel infrastructure and entertainment culture for its ability to pull this off.
“You’ve got Bellagio, Wynn, Venetian, Mirage, Cosmo — all these vertical properties that can house massive crowds,” she said. “Some even have track view suites.”
Add to that the presence of major brand activations, celebrity-hosted experiences, and high-end pop-ups. “It’s the kind of luxury that’s actually accessible,” she said. “You can go to Vegas and get a taste of Monaco — without the boats.”
Not just a race, but a showcase
The Grand Prix is more than a sporting event. “It’s not just a race,” Brisman said. “It’s a four or five-day production with entertainment, food, events — something for everyone.”
She noted the addition of Formula One-themed attractions in Vegas, like the karting track and F1 Arcade. But she doesn’t see the city becoming a “racing city” year-round.
“Vegas is an entertainment city first. It’s becoming a sporting event hub, but the real power is its ability to reinvent itself. And that’s why these contracts go five to ten years — because year three is when you start hitting operational excellence.”
As for what’s left behind when the race ends?
“Most of the infrastructure comes out. But the impact lingers. Restaurants upgrade their menus. Hotels upgrade HVAC or software. The pride in a city that pulls something like this off — that stays.”
According to Brisman, the physical assets, such as fences, barriers, and other structures lining the circuit’s streets to protect the crowds, are dismantled and stored in facilities outside the city, awaiting reassembly the following September.
Automobile Magazine-UK
