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What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? Not so fast. A vibe shift is afoot in Sin City, where — thanks to massive investment — sports and entertainment are now set to rival gambling, clubbing and conference-hopping as the city’s key attractions. Luxury brands — and customers — are following the money.
“Vegas has always been the destination for the convention-goer, the gambler and the person who wants to do naughty things — let’s be honest,” says Velda Turan, SVP of luxury leasing at Simon Property Group, which has four properties in Las Vegas including the Shops at Crystals and Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. “In 2024, it’s no longer just that.”
As luxury brands look outside of New York and LA to tap into the US’s wealthiest consumers — especially as aspirational spend stalls — Las Vegas is making its case for a revisit. In some ways, it’s already a big, luxury playground. Those on the ground say it’s particularly a hotbed for courting VICs, luxury brands’ top spenders. Gucci’s store at the Shops at Crystals spans two floors with a bespoke art installation, while Louis Vuitton’s is its biggest store in North America. Retail developers on the ground say that Vegas doors are among their top earning.
It’s a city renegotiating its well-known schtick in a bid to prove itself on the global stage. New brands outside of the mega fashion houses are opening their first stores there, and the ones that have had a long-standing presence are jockeying for attention by pulling out all the stops.
Here’s everything you need to know about hitting it big in Vegas.
Attracting a new audience
What’s changed? In a word, sports. Las Vegas, Nevada, first acquired an NHL team, the Vegas Golden Knights, in 2016; in 2020, the NFL followed, with the relocation of the Oakland Raiders. The team plays at the new Allegiant Stadium, which hosted this year’s Super Bowl (where Taylor Swift made her famous on-field appearance). More teams are on their way: the MLB’s Oakland Athletics are expected to call Las Vegas home next, with a new 33,000-person ballpark off of the Las Vegas Strip slated for 2028.
And the city is practically a lock for a new NBA team, as commissioner Adam Silver spoke highly of it while discussing the league’s expansion plans. Finally, don’t forget F1: last November, the race’s Las Vegas Grand Prix debuted — attracting brand sponsors like APL, Tommy Hilfiger and Palace — and will return again this autumn. “The future is so bright,” Turan says of the upcoming sports influx.
Not a sports fan? Look no further than the Sphere arena, which has brought the quintessential Las Vegas artist residency into 2024. You can’t miss it: the orbital music venue is an eye-popping addition to the city’s landscape and, after opening earlier this year, it’s drawing crowds of concert-goers who otherwise might be Vegas-averse, like Phish fans and Deadheads, who have come in droves for recent concert runs. All told, this means that new tourists and more volumes of visitors are heading to Vegas.
“Vegas has always been a relevant city for shopping for obvious reasons — the gambling,” says Federica Levato, a senior partner at consultancy Bain specialising in retail and luxury. But, she says that versus pre-Covid, tourism had stagnated while the experiences have stayed the same. Brands weren’t investing in stores as destinations in the same way they are now. Tourist volume, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, peaked in 2016 at 42.9 million annual visitors, and remained flat until 2020. As of 2023, Vegas has recouped much of its tourist traffic, with visitors reaching 40.8 million last year.
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“There’s been a requalification of Vegas as a destination. It’s entertainment, sports events, and most of all, it’s in a new development phase for luxury brands,” she continues. “They use Vegas as a playground to entertain and test experiences. Big stores unlock superior customer experiences, blending products with exhibitions and new categories. This is thanks to all the development around the city, attracting a cross-generational and cross-cultural customer.”
And those visiting are spending more. According to a 2023 study by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority in cooperation with Heart+Mind Strategies, food and drink as well as shopping spend per trip increased in 2023, and both are up over pre-pandemic levels.
Demetris Ford, 30, says he didn’t plan to go shopping while visiting Caesars Palace on a trip from Dallas. “I guess it just drew me in. Good people, good vibes,” he says. Other customers come with a plan to splurge. Daisy Villatoro, from Houston, says she visits Vegas three times a year with the intention to do just that. “At home, we’re so busy working that we don’t bother to go to the stores. Here, we’re on vacation mode, like, ‘Screw it, if you were going to spend it on a slot machine, you might as well spend it here.’” She says she saved up different pots of money for shopping and for gambling, and planned to secure a designer bag.
Hitting the jackpot
Brands are moving away from a set-it-and-forget-it approach to Las Vegas retail. The best way to do that? Host lavish client events that tap into Vegas’s larger-than-life spirit. According to Turan, that looks like weekends of private jets ferrying in VICs who are put up in hotels above the Shops at Crystals (the Vdara, a rare Vegas hotel that doesn’t sit atop a casino, is a top choice), where each luxury store worth its salt has a private shopping space. Visitors — often from California suburbs like Orange County or maybe local high-net-worth villages nearby, like Summerlin or Henderson — are given the VIC treatment with champagne and white-glove service. This warrants bigger store footprints, Turan adds. Exclusive products and a full spread of categories, from home furnishings to hard jewellery and watches, do well.
These private shopping events “yield fantastic results”, she says, for Crystals retailers like Chanel, Hermès, Cartier, Gucci, Dior, Louis Vuitton and Van Cleef & Arpels. “It’s about connecting a special purchase with an environment and experience. Our numbers are worldwide significant. Forget Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, Rodeo Drive — these are very significant numbers.” (Simon Property Group declined to share specific retail sales figures for its properties.)
Vegas’s advantage is that memorable experience. Walking through the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace is distinct to the point of disorienting; a shopping mall with a ceiling painted sky blue with puffy clouds, designed to make you feel like you’re strolling through Rome and not the Nevada desert. Compared to the Shops at Crystals, Caesars Palace is the high street, home to a mix of high and low brands. A luxury store cluster is anchored by a pillared Balenciaga store, flanked by brands like Tom Ford, Moncler, Gucci, Chloé, Bottega Veneta, Fendi, Versace, Armani, Ralph Lauren and more. Most major brands set up multiple shops along the Vegas Strip — you want to be nearby when the jackpot hits and impulse and adrenaline are running high.
“It’s the Vegas mindset — loose wallets,” says Michelle Perry, Ted Baker’s regional clienteling manager for the West Coast, who says the brand’s Caesars Palace store is her top-earning door of the 19 she oversees, which includes stores in the OC and San Francisco. One couple, visiting from Melbourne, dropped $3,000 in 20 minutes. International tourist foot traffic has surged since last July, she adds, with events like the Super Bowl, F1 and Adele’s residency luring the masses.
Glossier opened its first Vegas store in May, a stone’s throw from Ted Baker. The beauty brand is one of several direct-to-consumer natives with stores in Caesars Palace, alongside Alo, Good American and Vuori, and the location’s inspiration was “the extravagance of Vegas, the lights and the slot machines”, says chief commercial officer Chitra Balireddi.
“From our advantage point, who doesn’t go to Vegas?” she says of the company’s decision to open an outpost there. The wide net of locals, tourists, international visitors, bachelorette parties, conference attendees and anyone else who finds themselves in town for whatever reason, made the opportunity an appealing one. “It’s a wonderful way to meet a lot of people and have people get to know us if they haven’t met us yet.”
New heights of luxury
To get an idea of Las Vegas’s luxury ambitions, step off the Strip (and into the shadow of the Sphere) to the new Fontainebleau Las Vegas, the luxury resort property owned by Jeffrey Soffer. It’s the brand’s second location since the first opened in Miami 70 years ago.
Inside you’ll find multiple levels of luxury shopping and eateries, designed by Fontainebleau Development’s executive VP of design John Rawlins. LA hotspot Mother Wolf opened its second outpost in the property. Saint Laurent will debut a sprawling store inside the resort, while Alaïa and Boucheron will both open their first Las Vegas stores in Fontainebleau later this year. The Webster, a boutique with stores across the US carrying brands like Amiri and Victoria Beckham, will also open its first Vegas store in the development later this year.
One of Fontainebleau’s current crown jewels is the Chrome Hearts store, which opened last year. The entire store is constructed from marble, with the brand’s signature scent, two gold-plated chandeliers and a splay of white fur throws filling the space. It’s the brand’s third store in Las Vegas, but the first of its kind in concept.
“I think people have high expectations for Vegas,” says Brooke Soffer, Fontainebleau Development VP of corporate retail. “It’s a very special market, and you have a client who is in a different mindset while they’re there, and the volume speaks for itself. Brands we speak to say their stores in Vegas are their highest grossing stores.”
Making plans
Analysts and on-the-ground real estate execs agree that Vegas is a city where more stores don’t really run the risk of saturation, since many visitors tend to stick around whatever resort and casino they’re staying at, and walking the Vegas Strip in the desert heat is often a no go. Ultimately, it’s a city where strategy should be revisited often.
With more competition coming to town in terms of how visitors spend their time and money, exciting store formats, experiences and exclusive collections go a long way. Bain’s Levato says that luxury brands are over-investing in touristic locations as they’re heavy on the experiential aspect of retail. “They’re using the city to develop the fun and entertaining part of the store, and testing new initiatives — it’s evolving and expanding.”
And more investment means more money to be made. But can Vegas really ever shake the reputation as a bed of bacchanal and debauchery? That’s part of the appeal, according to the shoppers on the ground, who are there to win big, splurge and go again. The more reasons to visit Vegas otherwise, the better.
“The takeaway is this: [Simon Property develops] in most major markets. This market continues to be very special for us. And it’s only going to get stronger, better, cooler, sexier,” says Turan.
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