How a Music Festival is Revitalizing Downtown Las Vegas with Public Art

How a Music Festival is Revitalizing Downtown Las Vegas with Public Art
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Courtesy of Life is Beautiful

If your Las Vegas experience has been limited to the DJs, boozy brunches, day clubs, and high table minimums of the Strip, then it’s time to look beyond the debaucherous main drag and check out the best comeback kid in Sin City.

No, this isn’t a card counting whiz kid capable of climbing out of a deep deficit—this is Downtown Las Vegas.

Welcome to the OG life of this party city: the North Las Vegas area centered on Fremont Street. That is, it was the epicenter of Sin City until the gaming thoroughfare lost much of its sheen when focus shifted to the Strip in the 1980s. In fact, following a golden age of booming tourism, hospitality, and entertainment, the region faced an epidemic of closures only partially offset by the opening of the Fremont Street Experience, a second 24-hour “strip” of casinos located in the Downtown area, in 1995. But the 2010s have seen the start of a new era in the downtown area’s long history and various incarnations—one marked by public art projects, a revitalized tourism industry, and talent-attracting programming and pioneered by what might appear to be an unlikely source: Life is Beautiful.

D*Face, 7th & Ogden, 2013

D*Face, 7th & Ogden, 2013

Courtesy of Life is Beautiful

First held in 2013, the annual festival quickly made waves amongst the music community for attracting high profile headliners including The Killers and Kings of Leon (2013), Kanye West and the Foo Fighters (2014, Stevie Wonder and Kendrick Lamar (2015), and Mumford & Sons and Major Lazer (2016). But live music is only one element of this event, and only one way it’s helping to boost the local economy and culture; from inception, the festival—which covers 18 blocks of Downtown Las Vegas—has focused on the four pillars of music, culinary, learning, and art. The festival’s public art has been an integral part of the Life is Beautiful story from the very beginning, and has emerged as perhaps the single defining element of contemporary Downtown Las Vegas—thanks in part to red tape cleared by Life is Beautiful investor, Zappos CEO, and Downtown Las Vegas property owner Tony Hsieh. The result? The festival and year-round art programming have commissioned more than 30 large-scale murals and installations from artists including Banksy and Shepard Fairey, making the district one of the largest free public art galleries in the world. As Co-Founder Ryan Doherty told me when I spoke with him, this is the appeal of investing in visual art: “Art has always stood out because it sticks around—we have these massive walls all over downtown inside the [festival’s] footprint, and once the murals go up, we get to enjoy them for a long period of time, long after the musicians pack up and chefs go home.”

As we approach the 2017 festival to be held September 22-24, the art programming has become almost as hotly anticipated as the musical lineup; Chance the Rapper, Muse, and Gorillaz are rivaled by art cars, the Crime on Canvas art sale, and the return of the Art Motel, a 23-room interactive art experience curated by Meow Wolf. In addition to the two large-scale murals that have already been commissioned this year—one by Shepard Fairey and the other by D*Face—the September event will see the completion of a new piece at The Plaza Hotel & Casino by FAILE, a Brooklyn-based artist collaboration, and an exclusive installation by Spanish artist Okuda San Miguel that has yet to be revealed. The only clue so far? As Doherty let slip, “The art is really colorful this year.” But perhaps the most exciting art piece isn’t all new—as Doherty explained, Life is Beautiful will take an installation from 2016 by Pantone and, working with the solar company and neon companies in Las Vegas, will add on piping that will make the mural the first “100% sustainable, solar-powered mural.”

Felipe Pantone, 7th between Stewart and Ogden, 2016

Felipe Pantone, 7th between Stewart and Ogden, 2016

Courtesy of Life is Beautiful

The emphasis on public art murals and installations is Life is Beautiful’s competitive advantage in a saturated music festival space, and shows how well the organizers understand location-specific event planning. Doherty emphasized the advantages of an urban cityscape, what he called “great canvases for large-scale murals” and a way of enhancing both the event experience and year-round tourism draw. In part, that’s because the festival grounds and district footprints are one and the same; now, attendees not only experience Downtown Las Vegas during the festival but often find themselves wanting to return to peruse local art, save money on hiking prices, and see the local side of the glitzy gaming city. As Doherty put it so perfectly, the goal of Life is Beautiful is to show festival goers a good time—and that Downtown Las Vegas is “a place you can come back to.”

In many ways, Life is Beautiful has been successful in reframing Downtown Las Vegas in a way that both pays homage to its historic past and looks towards the future. What Doherty calls the “hidden gem of vintage Vegas” is now experiencing a renaissance, attracting a new generation of travelers who see the ways downtown has changed—something Doherty credits in many ways to the visual appeal of the public art; as he puts it, “People remember Downtown Vegas now, and they associate the art with it.” As murals and installations accumulate over the years as the festival continues, the public art will continue to drive tourists and locals to Downtown Las Vegas’ photogenic murals popular and smartly funneling both tourists and visitors into local hotels, resorts, and residential buildings—and sharing photos of the eye-catching buildings across social media. This is just the beginning of the next chapter of Downtown Las Vegas, but Life is Beautiful—and its public art program—are poised to reshape the way we visit Vegas.

Art Motel

Art Motel

Courtesy of Life is Beautiful
Banksy, 2015

Banksy, 2015

Courtesy of Life is Beautiful
Justin Favela, 2016

Justin Favela, 2016

Courtesy of Life is Beautiful
Shepard Fairey, 6th & Fremont, 2016

Shepard Fairey, 6th & Fremont, 2016

Courtesy of Life is Beautiful
Bordalo II, 7th & Fremont, 2015

Bordalo II, 7th & Fremont, 2015

Courtesy of Life is Beautiful

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