As Chief Industrial Officer of Formulation 1 and President & CEO of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Emily Prazer explains how Las Vegas has advanced 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 Formulation 1 is redefining what a contemporary Grand Prix can signify past the race itself, the Las Vegas mission continues to face out as one of many sport’s most carefully watched fashionable ventures. Conceived not solely as a sporting spectacle but additionally as a strategic extension of Formulation 1’s wider business imaginative and prescient, the occasion has shortly developed right into a case research 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 Formulation 1 might proceed to develop globally.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix has shortly established itself as one in every of Formulation 1’s most distinctive fashionable occasions. Out of your perspective, what had been crucial strategic priorities in shaping its identification past merely creating one other race on the calendar?
Our purpose has all the time been to create an occasion that redefines what a race weekend may be and to construct an expertise that provides worth to the game and most significantly, our followers.
Doing issues in a different way in Las Vegas has been key to establishing our identification. From shifting our post-race interviews to the Bellagio Fountains and placing the highest three finishers right into a pink Lego cooldown automobile, 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 increase the fan expertise nicely past the monitor.
One other massive precedence of ours is to determine Las Vegas as a year-round F1 vacation spot, not only a once-a-year occasion. Opening Grand Prix Plaza to the general public exterior of race week, with points of interest 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 Formulation 1 points of interest, additional cementing Las Vegas as the house for F1.
Las Vegas naturally operates on the intersection of sport, leisure, hospitality and international enterprise. How essential is it at this time for a Grand Prix to succeed concurrently in all of these dimensions?
One of many issues that makes Formulation 1 so particular is that each Grand Prix displays the character of its host metropolis. In Las Vegas, meaning totally embracing all the pieces that makes this vacation spot in contrast to anyplace else on the planet. It’s actually the perfect house 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 occurring simply steps from the circuit. The whole 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 Formulation 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 12 months. We’ve constructed unbelievable momentum over our first three years, and success to me is sustaining that power, persevering with to raise the fan expertise, and guaranteeing this race stays synonymous with innovation, spectacle and world-class racing for years to come back.
In your function, how a lot has the Las Vegas mission influenced wider fascinated about what future race promotion can seem like?
The Las Vegas Grand Prix is the primary and solely race promoted by Formulation 1, and it was deliberately designed as a take a look at 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 Formulation 1 thinks about the way forward for partnerships and fan engagement globally.
What have been the most important classes from balancing Formulation 1’s international identification with the very particular character and expectations of Las Vegas as a number metropolis?
Las Vegas Grand Prix has confirmed there’s actually no ceiling on creativity or scale, and that pushes Formulation 1 to suppose in a different way about how we present up globally. The town’s power sparks thrilling concepts, whether or not it’s exhibiting 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.
Trying 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 vital potential and are essential, however I consider experiential progress will proceed to drive all the pieces cultural and business progress for the Las Vegas Grand Prix. As we head into 12 months 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.
Formulation 1 has entered a interval the place promoter expectations are evolving quickly. What do you consider will outline the following technology of profitable Grands Prix?
I believe the following 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 all the time have a particular place within the sport and nothing can change the historical past and custom they bring about. However as F1 continues to develop globally, particularly in markets like North America and Asia, I believe new races want to supply one thing totally different that resonates with followers in these markets and past.
Management in tasks of this scale usually includes fixed adaptation. What has personally been probably the most demanding side of guiding a mission as seen and impressive as Las Vegas?
One of many largest challenges is the expectation of “what is going to they do subsequent?”
As we head into 12 months 4, it’s essential to me that we by no means get comfy with the place we’re.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix has a really clear identification, 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 Formulation 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 nevertheless they select to expertise it. We now have a completely new technology of followers, a lot of whom had been launched to Formulation 1 by way of Drive to Survive and social media. Whereas they have interaction in fully new methods, we nonetheless have a long-time fanbase who nonetheless anticipate the traditions and moments they’ve all the time beloved. Hanging that stability is essential to the game’s continued progress.
Understanding who our followers are and what they care about is essential, which is why we work so carefully 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 will create new alternatives to maintain them engaged, whether or not that’s by way of content material, know-how 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 by way of digital content material, social platforms, new points of interest and experiences like Grand Prix Plaza in Las Vegas, which supplies followers with an F1 touchpoint exterior of race week.
In the event you look 5 years forward, what would make you are feeling that Las Vegas has totally achieved what it was meant to turn out to be inside Formulation 1?
The massive image purpose is to have Las Vegas be a mainstay on the Formulation 1 calendar. We’re at the moment signed by way of 2027, however the purpose is to race in Las Vegas nicely into the longer term. Coming into our fourth 12 months, we’re assured and pleased with the progress we’ve made 12 months after 12 months. 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 identification and house inside the broader Formulation 1 ecosystem, and we’d wish to proceed this momentum into the longer term.
