Most of us knew this was coming, even if we didn’t know when or exactly how. Even during the darkest days of the pandemic, when the lavish resorts of the Las Vegas Strip were empty and locked up and everyone was waiting to see what would happen next, there was a foundational belief that big shows and showrooms would one day be packed with people again.

Some 15 months later, that day has come. Sports set the comeback standard, with Vegas Golden Knights games returning to max capacity at T-Mobile Arena. Headlining residencies and superstar weekend takeovers from the likes of Bruno Mars, Dave Chappelle and Usher are on tap, and the monumental production shows of Cirque du Soleil began to return this week. Arena-sized concert tour stops are next on the checklist.

After many months of small-scale Vegas shows and lounge-style live music valiantly entertaining visitors and keeping the energy level high up and down the Strip, the big stuff is back, and this week, it’ll be bigger than ever.

“How quickly this all came about surprised a lot of people, including me,” says Bobby Reynolds, senior vice president of AEG Presents, one of the most dominant forces in live entertainment in Las Vegas and across the country. “There’s no bigger show in town in July than the Illenium show at Allegiant Stadium, and that’s the one that came together quickly with a lot of work to do. That’s a huge production to assemble and a lot of tickets to sell.

“Getting that done is certainly a statement that Las Vegas is back,” he continues, “and certainly it’s a good indication that people are ready to come back and party and be among friends and go see shows. It’s a really encouraging sign.”

The July 3 “Trilogy” performance by Illenium, 30-year-old electronic music artist and producer Nick Miller, will be the first-ever ticketed concert at the stadium. The event is expected to sell 35,000 tickets and is being produced by AEG with the Life Is Beautiful festival and others.

Its stunningly rapid assembly allows Illenium to beat Garth Brooks to the Allegiant Stadium stage. The country superstar was originally set to christen the venue on August 22, 2020, and Brooks sold out all 65,000 tickets for that date in just 75 minutes. After COVID postponed the concert and forced the Las Vegas Raiders to play their first season at Allegiant without fans, Brooks resettled on a July 10 date. Re-released tickets were still available at press time.

The anticipation for events at the brand-new stadium facility is through the roof, and excitement extends far beyond Las Vegas. Raiders tickets are the hottest and most expensive in the NFL, and the stadium schedule is filling up fast with other sports and entertainment events.

“We were paying close attention to March Madness, because there was a thought that people might not be going back to Las Vegas [to bet and watch games] because there was nothing to go back to,” says Nick Khan, president of WWE, which will hold its SummerSlam event at an NFL stadium for the first time at Allegiant in August. “Once March Madness hit, the occupancy rate skyrocketed. That was our moment of [understanding that] if we have an event, it will get people back, and it’s an opportunity to also help jump-start the Vegas economy.”

The current demand for massive music and sports events in Las Vegas has already outpaced the supply. Two of the biggest names anchoring a slate of Fourth of July weekend entertainment, Mars and Chappelle, added additional shows after selling out initial ones. The hunger for live entertainment in the world’s foremost destination for it has forced artists and producers to put unprecedented deals together, the best example of which might be the Justin Bieber concert scheduled for July 9 at the intimate 1,500-seat Encore Theater at Wynn.

“That show is a definitely a little different,” Reynolds says. AEG partners with Wynn to program that theater, which has certainly seen its share of huge artists over the years, including Brooks and Beyoncé. “The opening of the Delilah [restaurant] was sort of the impetus that brought this deal together. It came up very quickly and is really a function of so much activity at Wynn and all the great things going on there. It’s not a normal course of business at [Encore Theater], but it is an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity you can only see at Wynn, and that’s what makes it so special.”

Bieber’s show isn’t the only special occasion this month. Miley Cyrus will play Ayu Dayclub at Resorts World on July 4 , with the concert broadcast live on the 100,000-square-foot LED screen on the hotel’s west tower facing the Strip. On the same night, Brooks will thrill an expected capacity crowd at Allegiant and UFC 264 will bring the third bout between Dustin Poirier and Conor McGregor to T-Mobile Arena. And on July 16, Usher will launch his new residency show at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.

Every week, new Las Vegas concert and event announcements for 2021 and 2022 continue to pour in, scheduled for the city’s biggest entertainment spaces including MGM Grand Garden Arena, Michelob Ultra Arena at Mandalay Bay, Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood and Park Theater at Park MGM. Tickets just recently went on sale for Strip shows from Pitbull, J. Cole, Jason Aldean, Rod Stewart and OneRepublic, the iHeartRadio pop music festival in September at T-Mobile Arena and Area15, and a New Year’s Eve series of shows by The Go-Go’s at Venetian Theatre.

Whether you’re a touring act or a tourist ready to buy tickets, you want to be in Las Vegas soon.

“The million-dollar question right now is when is the market going to get oversaturated,” Reynolds says. “We always want to be pushing the envelope, and it’s important to try to sell out every single show. We are adding shows for future residency runs, so the demand is definitely there. But how long it will last, I don’t know.

“We do know that coming to Vegas is going to last for a long time, and it’s not just the weekend crowd that comes to party,” Reynolds continues. “When conventioneers get the opportunity to come back to Las Vegas in the middle of the week and that business gets strong going forward, that will be a great sign for the city and those residency show models, because they play midweek shows, too.”

Improving midweek visitation is also crucial for larger production shows like those from Cirque du Soleil, which typically run five nights a week. Cirque reopened its original Strip resident show, Mystère, at Treasure Island, on June 28; next comes the return of O at Bellagio on July 1. The company also recently announced it will bring back Michael Jackson One at Mandalay Bay on August 19 and The Beatles Love at the Mirage on August 26, leaving only KÁ at MGM Grand left without a comeback date. It’s expected to return in early fall.

Varied production shows in smaller venues like Absinthe, Thunder From Down Under, Fantasy, Tape Face, Extravaganza and Piff the Magic Dragon have provided plenty of entertainment options since fall 2020, but some of the most recognizable Vegas productions in bigger theaters are coming back this month. Blue Man Group reopened at Luxor on June 24; Shin Lim: Limitless reopens at the Mirage Theater on July 1; Criss Angel: Mindfreak is back at Planet Hollywood on July 7; and Tournament of Kings returns to Excalibur on July 14.

Sleight-of-hand expert Lim, the only two-time champion from America’s Got Talent, says he was considering reopening his magic-based show months ago but is thrilled to be coming back without the challenges of COVID-19 restrictions.

“We have a lot of audience participation in the show; at least my special guest, Colin Cloud, does. He has a lot of people come up onstage, so it was tricky to figure out how to work around that and wearing masks,” Lim says. “Now that all those things died down, it will be a lot easier.”

Lim also has the benefit of being the sole headliner in the Mirage Theater at this time. Lim shared the room with ventriloquist Terry Fator and iconic pop group Boyz II Men until last year; Fator has moved down the Strip to New York-New York, and no return dates for Boyz II Men’s residency have been announced yet. The Aces of Comedy stand-up series will return to the venue this weekend.

“For pretty much all of the [last year], I’ve been super deep into experimenting with new concepts and new effects, doing a lot of trial and error and developing new sleights, all for the show,” Lim says. “It was really good to be able to step away from the performance aspect for a while, because it’s a totally different game. And before … I had to work around Terry Fator’s [setup]. I wasn’t able to touch or move anything, so it was difficult for me to do what I wanted to do freely. Now the theater is pretty much mine, and I’m going to be able to do some amazing things there.”

Bringing back that old Vegas magic is top priority for entertainers of all stripes. With shows big and small selling out regularly, it’s difficult to discern whether the performers are more excited to be back onstage than the audience members are to be entertained once again.

Big Events: Start planning your summer at the Valley’s largest venues

ALLEGIANT STADIUM

July 3 Illenium

July 10 Garth Brooks

August 1 Concacaf Gold Cup Final (soccer)

August 14 Raiders vs. Seahawks (preseason)

August 21 WWE SummerSlam

August 27 Guns N’ Roses

September 2 UNLV vs. Eastern Washington football

September 4 BYU vs. Arizona football

September 13 Raiders vs. Ravens

BROOKLYN BOWL

August 20 Mt. Joy & Trampled by Turtles

August 22 Rakim & DJ Jazzy Jeff

THE CHELSEA

July 2-3 Bill Burr

August 20 Rise Against

August 21 Dane Cook

August 28 Sech

September 15 Death Cab for Cutie

September 18 John Legend

THE COLOSSEUM

July 16-31 Usher

August 28-September 5 Morrissey

September 17-25 Keith Urban

ENCORE THEATER

July 9 Justin Bieber

July 16 Demetri Martin

July 17-18 Nate Bargatze

July 30 Tom Papa

August 6-7 Jim Gaffigan

August 13-14 Jo Koy

August 20-21 Sebastian Maniscalco

September 3-5 Jo Koy

September 10-11, 24-25 Lionel Richie

HOUSE OF BLUES

July 2 One Drop

July 3 Steel Panther

July 9-10 Intocable

July 15 Jorge Celedon

July 23 Whitey Morgan

August 6 Corey Taylor

August 14 Beartooth

August 25, 27-29 & September 1-4 Santana

September 5 Simple Plan & New Found Glory

September 21 The Black Dahlia Murder

MGM GRAND GARDEN ARENA

July 2-3 Dave Chappelle & Friends

July 8-9 Dave Chappelle & Joe Rogan

September 4 Harry Styles

September 10-12 Grupo Firme

September 15 Alejandro Fernandez

MICHELOB ULTRA ARENA

July 10-18 USA Basketball

August 14 Il Divo

August 20-22 Psycho Las Vegas Festival

September 4 Maluma

September 11 Banda MS

PARK THEATER

July 3-31 Bruno Mars

August 6 Joe Bonamassa

August 13-14 Bruno Mars

August 20-21 Jonas Brothers

THEATER AT VIRGIN

September 11 Gary Clark Jr.

T-MOBILE ARENA

July 10 UFC 264: Poirier vs. McGregor III

July 24 Fury vs. Wilder III (boxing)

August 13-14 George Strait

September 17-18 iHeartRadio Music Festival

VENETIAN THEATRE

August 26-29 Debbie Gibson & Joey McIntyre

September 4-5 Mike Epps

September 15-18 Chicago

ZAPPOS THEATER

September 4-5 OneRepublic

September 14 Christian Nodal

September 18 Pitbull

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