As Chief Industrial Officer of Components 1 and President & CEO of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Emily Prazer explains how Las Vegas has developed from a brand new race right into a strategic platform shaping the way forward for fan expertise, partnerships and destination-led promotion throughout the championship.
At a time when Components 1 is redefining what a contemporary Grand Prix can characterize past the race itself, the Las Vegas undertaking continues to face out as one of many sport’s most intently watched trendy ventures. Conceived not solely as a sporting spectacle but additionally as a strategic extension of Components 1’s wider business imaginative and prescient, the occasion has shortly developed right into a case examine in destination-led promotion, fan engagement and year-round activation.
Paddock Journal had the chance to talk with Emily Prazer about how Las Vegas is evolving past race weekend – not merely as one other cease on the calendar, however as a platform serving to form how Components 1 could proceed to develop globally.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix has shortly established itself as certainly one of Components 1’s most distinctive trendy occasions. Out of your perspective, what have been crucial strategic priorities in shaping its id past merely creating one other race on the calendar?
Our purpose has at all times been to create an occasion that redefines what a race weekend could be and to construct an expertise that provides worth to the game and most significantly, our followers.
Doing issues in another way in Las Vegas has been key to establishing our id. From shifting our post-race interviews to the Bellagio Fountains and placing the highest three finishers right into a pink Lego cooldown automotive, to creating business alternatives for companions to activate in new, significant methods, and curating experiences inside our fan zones and throughout the Strip, these initiatives develop the fan expertise nicely past the observe.
One other huge precedence of ours is to ascertain Las Vegas as a year-round F1 vacation spot, not only a once-a-year occasion. Opening Grand Prix Plaza to the general public outdoors of race week, with sights like F1 DRIVE, F1 X, and the F1 HUB, supplies followers with ongoing touchpoints with the game. It’s now the world’s largest assortment of Components 1 sights, additional cementing Las Vegas as the house for F1.
Las Vegas naturally operates on the intersection of sport, leisure, hospitality and international enterprise. How vital is it right now for a Grand Prix to succeed concurrently in all of these dimensions?
One of many issues that makes Components 1 so particular is that each Grand Prix displays the persona of its host metropolis. In Las Vegas, which means absolutely embracing the whole lot that makes this vacation spot not like anyplace else on the earth. It’s really the best residence for an F1 race as a result of it already operates on the intersection of sport, leisure, hospitality and international enterprise.
The race is one a part of the expertise. In Las Vegas, it naturally turns into a multi-day, only-in-Vegas occasion. Followers get three days of on-track motion, plus the hospitality, nightlife, concert events, chef-driven experiences and enterprise networking alternatives that Las Vegas is thought for, all taking place simply steps from the circuit. The complete resort hall turns into an extension of the occasion footprint; it’s an unbelievable time to go to Las Vegas and fully new solution to expertise Components 1.
How do you outline long-term success for Las Vegas Grand Prix?
Lengthy-term success means cementing Las Vegas Grand Prix because the can’t-miss sporting occasion of the yr. We’ve constructed unbelievable momentum over our first three years, and success to me is sustaining that vitality, persevering with to raise the fan expertise, and making certain this race stays synonymous with innovation, spectacle and world-class racing for years to come back.
In your position, how a lot has the Las Vegas undertaking influenced wider fascinated with what future race promotion can appear to be?
The Las Vegas Grand Prix is the primary and solely race promoted by Components 1, and it was deliberately designed as a check mattress for the game. It’s allowed F1 to be taught extra about their enterprise and experiment with new approaches to partnerships, fan expertise and race promotion. A number of ideas that started in Las Vegas, such because the F1 HUB retail expertise, debuted in Las Vegas and have expanded to different races. What we be taught in Las Vegas helps form how Components 1 thinks about the way forward for partnerships and fan engagement globally.
What have been the most important classes from balancing Components 1’s international id with the very particular character and expectations of Las Vegas as a bunch metropolis?
Las Vegas Grand Prix has confirmed there’s actually no ceiling on creativity or scale, and that pushes Components 1 to suppose in another way about how we present up globally. The town’s vitality sparks thrilling concepts, whether or not it’s displaying reside race flags on the Exosphere or placing Mickey Mouse on the Fountains of Bellagio for a post-race fountain present. In some ways, Las Vegas encourages us to stretch the boundaries of what a race weekend can supply, and that mindset is influencing how F1 helps promoters and builds international initiatives.
Wanting forward, the place do you continue to see the best progress potential for the Las Vegas Grand Prix: commercially, experientially, or culturally?
All three areas maintain important potential and are vital, however I imagine experiential progress will proceed to drive the whole lot cultural and business progress for the Las Vegas Grand Prix. As we head into yr 4, there’s a a lot deeper understanding of what the Las Vegas Grand Prix represents and that confidence permits us to maintain refining and increasing the expertise in significant methods. Strengthening the expertise naturally reinforces the race’s cultural relevance as a can’t-miss occasion for followers, and business progress follows from that as we combine our companions, licensing offers and ancillary programming in significant methods.
Components 1 has entered a interval the place promoter expectations are evolving quickly. What do you imagine will outline the subsequent technology of profitable Grands Prix?
I feel the subsequent technology of profitable Grands Prix would be the ones that actually perceive what makes their vacation spot distinctive and construct the race expertise round that.
Legacy circuits reminiscent of Monaco and Silverstone will at all times have a particular place within the sport and nothing can exchange the historical past and custom they bring about. However as F1 continues to develop globally, particularly in markets like North America and Asia, I feel new races want to supply one thing totally different that resonates with followers in these markets and past.
Management in initiatives of this scale typically includes fixed adaptation. What has personally been probably the most demanding facet of guiding a undertaking as seen and bold as Las Vegas?
One of many largest challenges is the expectation of “what is going to they do subsequent?”
As we head into yr 4, it’s vital to me that we by no means get comfy with the place we’re.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix has a really clear id, and my job is to make sure we proceed pushing the occasion ahead, innovating, evolving our partnerships, and elevating the bar, whereas staying true to what followers have come to like about this race.
From a broader Components 1 perspective, how do you see fan expectations persevering with to reshape the best way race weekends are designed?
As our fan base grows and evolves, our job is to evolve with our followers and discover new, significant methods for them to really feel nearer to the game – wherever and nonetheless they select to expertise it. We now have a wholly new technology of followers, a lot of whom have been launched to Components 1 via Drive to Survive and social media. Whereas they have interaction in fully new methods, we nonetheless have a long-time fanbase who nonetheless count on the traditions and moments they’ve at all times cherished. Hanging that steadiness is vital to the game’s continued progress.
Understanding who our followers are and what they care about is vital, which is why we work so intently with companions like Salesforce and Globant. Their insights assist us higher perceive what followers are taken with, how they’re interacting with the game and the place we are able to create new alternatives to maintain them engaged, whether or not that’s via content material, expertise or how we design the at-track expertise.
It’s clear to us that followers need extra constant touchpoints with the game past simply race weekend. That’s driving us to consider accessibility and engagement year-round via digital content material, social platforms, new sights and experiences like Grand Prix Plaza in Las Vegas, which supplies followers with an F1 touchpoint outdoors of race week.
In the event you look 5 years forward, what would make you are feeling that Las Vegas has absolutely achieved what it was meant to develop into inside Components 1?
The large image purpose is to have Las Vegas be a mainstay on the Components 1 calendar. We’re presently signed via 2027, however the purpose is to race in Las Vegas nicely into the longer term. Coming into our fourth yr, we’re assured and happy with the progress we’ve made yr after yr. We’ve listened to our suggestions from each race attendees and locals to proceed to construct and develop this race. Las Vegas Grand Prix has developed its id and house inside the broader Components 1 ecosystem, and we’d wish to proceed this momentum into the longer term.
