Nevada mask mandate affecting event booking at Allegiant Stadium

Chris Wright, Allegiant Stadium general manager, told the Las Vegas Stadium Authority the new mask mandate has impacted event booking.

“We started to get some significant traction on events in 2021 and 2022 and we were starting to run into some significant headwind related to the latest COVID-related mask requirements,” Wright said during Tuesday’s virtual stadium authority meeting. “We had a couple of shows in October that we were due to announce that we lost at the last second, prior to their announcement. Two sellout nights that we’ve looked for alternate dates, potentially rescheduled later in the year, but we’re having a struggle doing that.”

Wright added that “there’s a lot of resistance to ticketed events, booking, announcing, going on sale while we’re in the middle of the current restrictions, with respect to masks and attendees.”

He did not identify the two events that canceled.

Things are looking better for the stadium’s 2022 calendar, as Wright noted they had upwards of 150 events lined up at the stadium, including ticketed events, private events, live events and corporate events.

“Hopefully we’re not going to have a significant impact yet on the 2022 shows that we’ve been able to confirm,” Wright said. “But there are more scheduled to go on sale in the short term. We’ve got a little bit of time there, so hopefully we can get past this latest bout with COVID and we can reach a point where we can go on sale with those shows.”

Of those 150 events, ticketed events — major concerts or sporting events — account for over 40, Wright noted. Although optimistic, Wright said keeping all those events will hinge on how the pandemic’s impacts change in the near-term.

“We feel like 2022 could have a very robust year as long as we’re able to move forward with what we have planned currently,” Wright said. “We won’t really know that until we get into where we are with restrictions on attendees.”

UNLV football schedule

UNLV and the Raiders worked together to reschedule a pair of Rebels football games at Allegiant Stadium, to allow for both teams to play on the same weekends.

The Rebels’ Oct. 23 game versus San Jose State was moved to Oct. 21 and UNLV’s planned Nov. 20 game against San Diego State was moved to Nov. 19 to allow proper time to set up for a pair of Raiders home games on those weekends.

“UNLV has found a way to move a couple of games to frankly just physically make both UNLV’s games and the Raiders’ games possible on the same weekend,” said Steve Hill, stadium authority chairman. “It wasn’t an easy process to go through and we really appreciate both organizations being willing to work together to figure that out.”

Hill noted there will be costs incurred by UNLV tied to moving those dates and the Raiders have agreed to reimburse the school for those. The final cost is still being figured out and will be presented at a future stadium authority meeting.

“That math is a little difficult, we’re still finalizing the audit of UNLV’s costs,” Hill said. “If it turns out that the stadium authority, through the waterfall, can reimburse UNLV for those expenses, UNLV will then reimburse the Raiders for basically having fronted those expenses.”

The waterfall account Hill mentioned is one set up to pay out UNLV up to $3.5 million annually for the first 10 years it is at the stadium and away from Sam Boyd Stadium to make up for possible lost revenue tied to events they could have held there. The yearly amount is set to gradually decrease if the school’s football revenues increase due to playing at a new, larger stadium.

Hill said there likely won’t be any money flowing into UNLV’s waterfall account for two to three years because of the pandemic and because Clark County had to tap the debt reserve account to make twice yearly bond payments.

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.