Dave Matthews Band. Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa. Sting and Peter Gabriel. 5 Seconds of Summer. Even former locals Panic! at the Disco. What do all of those major acts have in common? Their 2016 summer tours sidestepped Las Vegas. They also primarily opted for high-capacity outdoor amphitheaters (aka sheds), of which Las Vegas has none.
We are hardly wanting for large music venues, with six arenas between here and Primm and another seemingly on the way. And the Valley does boast a few midsized outdoor concert spaces—including Clark County Amphitheater, Sunset Station Outdoor Amphitheater, Henderson Pavilion and the newer Craig Ranch Regional Park Amphitheater, the latter accommodating up to 8,000 but currently scheduled with just one upcoming show—plus resort pool venues. But what we really need to draw (or lure back) more world-class talent is a world-class amphitheater.
The usual rebuttal: It’s too hot here. Well, 90-plus-degree weather doesn’t last year round, and it clearly doesn’t deter everyone from, say, hiking at Red Rock Canyon, attending music festivals like EDC, watching productions at Super Summer Theatre, walking the Strip or, ahem, celebrating the Fourth of July. And if we needed any more proof that such a venue could work, consider Phoenix, a city generally warmer than Las Vegas. Its 20,000-cap Ak-Chin Pavilion has thrived since 1988 and will host three of the aforementioned tours in the coming months.
Incidentally, another tour headed to Ak-Chin—Counting Crows and Rob Thomas—is already scheduled for the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center, an 11,000-capacity outdoor venue. In absence of a hillside venue, can DLVEC fill the void—or will it go the way of similar bleacher-framed venues once used by the Hard Rock Hotel and Red Rock Resort? Regardless, it could be that an outdoor amphitheater is another one of those big-city inclusions that eludes us until investors or critical mass create an opportunity.
