Life is Beautiful festival Founder Rehan Choudhry. (VT Photo)
If you’re going to roll the dice, what better place to do it than Las Vegas? That’s the thinking behind the second edition of the Life is Beautiful festival, which will once again take over the downtown streets of Sin City on Oct. 24, 25 and 26 in a newly expanded three-day format.
“Going into the development of a festival you always hope you can get to that three-day mark, which is the perfect setup for a trip out to Vegas: you arrive on Thursday for a kick-off party and stay through Monday,” said founder Rehan Choudhry of his year-two expansion. In addition to adding a day of programming, Choudhry has upped his talent buy and splurged on a number of major headliners, including Kanye West, Foo Fighters, OutKast and Skrillex.
“We had to go with two days in the first year because there were so many variables that went into it: fencing off 15 city blocks, stages in the middle of parking lots, integrating food, learning and art,” he said of the inspirational event, which mixes music with food from top-shelf chefs, art and speeches in the TED Talk vein.
First year metrics led Choudhry to take the gamble on expansion, which, of course, comes with increased costs, but also a number of efficiencies. “You’re not really getting the full cost of an additional day,” he said. “ We set up stages and fences a week in advance, which are all rentals, so there’s no additional costs to equipment. There are operational costs for security and concessions, but there’s a lot of buying in bulk or week rates.”
Though he wouldn’t talk specifics, Choudhry said talent costs doubled from year one in an effort to draw bigger names, along with expanded fees for top-shelf chefs and culinary programming so visitors can feel like they’re walking into a high-end food and wine festival. He also booked well-known speakers.
“It’s easily in the seven figures,” Choudhry said of the talent spend for the festival, which drew 30,000 attendees per day in 2013, with expectations for 40,000 per day in 2014. He said total costs are north of $10 million.
So, how do you pull off shutting down 15 blocks of a major city for a week? Well, it helps when billionaire Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is your partner and the footprint overlaps with his $350-million downtown redevelopment plan: The Downtown Project.
Life is Beautiful sets up east of Fremont Street in the middle of Hsieh’s redevelopment zone, which is currently a mix of empty storefronts, historic bars and new and old restaurants. Choudhry’s hope is that every year attendees come to LIB they will see more and more development and destinations that will make them feel like a part of the city’s revitalization. “Instead of being in an empty field, you see this progression [of downtown] and get a sense of emotional loyalty to the city,” he said.
LIB starts loading in the week before the event begins, with a phased shutdown of blocks and streets, and loads out within 48 hours after wrapping. The 15-block radius is surrounded by an 8-foot-tall fence and security handled by several hundred Las Vegas City Metro Security and Police, Homeland Security agents and private security with 24-hour security and surveillance once the site build begins.
This year's Life Is Beautiful festival will close 15 blocks in Las Vegas and bring artists including Kanye West, Foo Fighters, OutKast and Skrillex.
In addition to 70 musical acts on four stages (including a special performance from the Beatles LOVE Cirque du Soleil show with members of the Las Vegas Philharmonic Orchestra), the site will feature large-scale art installations, several Culinary Villages with curated food and drinks and Chefs on Stage demonstrations from some of the nation’s top chefs. Unlike other festivals that have food trucks or hand-picked food offerings, stand-up comedy/film and some scattered art installations, Choudhry said the nonmusic aspects of Life is Beautiful are just as important to the brand as the headliners.
Tickets are $199.50 plus fees for general admission (for early bird purchasers), $225 plus fees for advance three-day purchases and $249.50 for regular three-day passes. VIP tickets are $595.00 plus fees and include an exclusive lounge with shade and seating, enhanced views of the main stage, VIP restrooms, access to VIP beer, wine and spirits concessions, and a poster.
Among the sponsors and partners are: Wirtz Beverage Nevada, Dos Equis, Zappos.com, Ketel One Vodka, Pandora, Las Vegas Events, Caesars Entertainment, Sub-Zero and online content partner POPSUGAR.
Choudhry sees LIB as more of an inspirational brand than a music festival, as evidenced by a website filled with articles and links to uplifting stories and videos and a message he hopes resonates beyond the weekend. “If you allow people to feed off other people’s passions you can achieve a [much larger] positive response,” he said. “A music festival is a siloed environment, but introduce culinary enthusiasts and those two different audiences interact and it’s a learning opportunity that’s far more impacting.”
Las Vegas Events President Pat Christenson is thrilled with how LIB has fit into the suddenly burgeoning suite of nearly half a dozen music and lifestyle festivals in the city. “Each is such a different offering and so unique from each other,” he said of other events such as the Electric Daisy Carnival EDM fest and the iHeartRadio festival. “The whole design [of LIB] -- where music is a big component but there’s also art, education and food – those four complement each other and they also help focus the brand and promote downtown.”
As for who the audience is, Choudhry said he’s seen very little conversion from tourists who happen to be in Las Vegas and decide to attend, even though he calls his prices the lowest in the industry for comparable shows. In year one, 40 percent of attendees were from the Las Vegas metro area, 20-30 percent from Los Angeles and most of the rest from San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Phoenix, San Diego and New York. “One of the reasons most events like ours have failed in Vegas is that they tried to replicate the model of 90 percent from outside and 10 percent within,” he said. “We focused on Vegas locals to make them feel like we’re part of their city and that worked.”
Christenson has seen evidence of that firsthand. He cites the short-lived Vegoose fest from Superfly/AC Entertainment, which he said failed to reach locals, one of the reasons he said led to its three-and-done demise. “Also it was far from the Strip, about eight miles east,” he said of the far-flung locale. “So when you look at the launch of LIB, it was absolutely the opposite direction.” He isn’t sure yet if LIB will cement Vegas as a new festival destination, but the prospects are bright. “We’re relatively new at festivals. But in the next five years, considering number and diversity of the festivals we’re doing, LIB will be a critical piece of that pie.”
The vast majority of marketing for LIB will come from social media pitches, as well as online, database-driven blasts from partners and Ticketmaster. There will also be quite a bit of traditional radio buys. In addition, there will be print ads in all the feeder markets on a monthly or biweekly basis. Because of the wide range of offerings, the festival’s target demo is very wide, from 16-28 for the music side, to late 40s for the culinary portion and perhaps higher for the learning elements.
“How do we extend that brand beyond a three-day festival?,” Choudhry asked. His solution is to create partnerships with the on-line lifestyle brands like Popsugar, which targets women age 20-30 and gets 20 million unique impressions a month, few of which he expects to attend Life is Beautiful.
“Even if we don’t sell a ticket, there’s awareness around the name and it’s a way to get the brand out there, so maybe we could launch a fashion line, a media content platform, a speaker’s series and other extensions that have nothing to do with the festival. Getting money from Red Bull or another sponsor isn’t the challenge, it’s coming up with new experiential content that is additive. It’s very much a long-term play.”
Contacted for this story: Rehan Choudhry, (702) 889-2705; Pat Christenson, (702) 260-8605