MGM Resorts has revealed that last week’s Las Vegas Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend was the highest grossing weekend for hotel revenue in the company’s history. It is also likely to drive November to become the all-time record month, despite this period traditionally being one of the slowest months of the year.
MGM’s Chief Financial Officer, Jonathan Halkyard, provided some insight into the F1 weekend while speaking at the Bank of America Leveraged Finance conference on Wednesday morning (Asia time), confirming business volumes matched or exceeded the company’s expectations.
“We had very high expectations for what this event would be in Las Vegas and in particular because it was during what is normally one the slowest, if not the slowest, weekends in Las Vegas,” Halkyard said. “And because of our high expectations we invested pretty heavily into it, particularly in creating an experience for our casino customers and some retail customers in front of the Bellagio, among other things.
“The race met every one of our expectations. It was the highest grossing weekend for us in hotel revenue in the company’s history, with the second highest being [tech event] CES in 2019. When you think about other events that have happened in Las Vegas over the years and the scale of our company that’s quite something to have a record weekend on what was otherwise the slowest weekend of the year.
“It met our expectations in terms of casino volume, food and beverage, and most importantly the guests and our employees has a very good experience during the long weekend.
“Also, we expect this event as a temple in the month of November will also enable us to post November as the record month in hotel revenue in the history of the company.”
Halkyard also outlined his expectation that the Las Vegas F1 weekend would continue to be a flagship event for the company in the years ahead, aided by less need for new investment into infrastructure and facilities.
“This was an event that certainly had a lot of friction in the months leading up to it, a lot of construction across Las Vegas,” he explained. “Some of that will be recurring but a lot of it will not be as dramatic in the coming years because over the course of a year, F1 and the city got Las Vegas ready to host this event. F1 invested hundreds of millions of dollars of capital in their paddock facility and that, along with money we invested to build this hospitality experience, we will reuse that year after year.
“So I’m very optimistic that this will be a fantastic event in the years to come.”
