Las Vegas is on a winning streak - lately, it’s always in demand. But if you plan according to some general guidelines, you’re likely to get the experience you’re aiming for.
It used to be a little easier to plan for Las Vegas using simple formulas like “it’s so hot in August that hotel prices dip” or “the weeks right before or after a big holiday weekend are less crowded.” None of this simple logic applies anymore. Las Vegas is on fire, and there are a million reasons to travel here. In recent years, the city has ushered in more and more events: sports games for its three new major league professional teams; a growing meeting and conventions calendar; huge stadium concerts and in-demand musical residencies, and the largest electronic music festival in the world. In short, there is no slow time in Las Vegas anymore. It’s also the wild card of tourism destinations, hitting airline flight all-time highs in typically low-season months and the highest average hotel occupancy in the nation, regardless of the season. That said, if you use some general guidelines to plan your trip, you can game the system.
Las Vegas can be brutally hot in the summer and surprisingly cold in the winter. Typically, April through June and September through the end of October are balmy and mild, which is why these months are considered the high season. On the other hand, high season often means price hikes in hotel rooms, but there are even some high season hacks. The big holiday weekends bookending the summer months, Memorial Day and Labor Day, are big weekends in Vegas, with epic DJ appearances and pool parties. If you’re not coming specifically for the scene, consider looking at bookings during slightly less popular times, like the weekend before Memorial Day or midweek after Labor Day.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority releases a convention calendar, which is one of the best planning tools you can use for anticipating how crowded the city will be. If you’re trying to keep prices down, plan around the big conventions.
Las Vegas residents who can typically leave the city in July and August when temperatures regularly clear three digits and even the nights can be well into the 70- to 80-degree Fahrenheit range. Those sweltering days can be the best for finding low prices. Keep in mind, though, that if there’s a big event or a convention, all bets are off. For instance, the NBA Summer League comes to Vegas each July – a 75-game, 11-day competition that floods the city with visitors.
As you can imagine, Las Vegas during New Year’s Eve is crazy crowded – so much so that the Strip is actually closed to traffic in the afternoon and doesn’t reopen until early New Year’s Day morning. If you need a getaway during the winter months but want to avoid the crowds, look at dates that immediately follow that weekend, presumably when everyone has gone back to work. That said, one big convention can change the entire dynamic on the Strip. The Consumer Electronics Show, the most influential technology convention in the world, comes to Las Vegas for that very reason—to take advantage of the quieter travel time. For Vegas visitors, that adds up to 115,000 attendees. Considering the city has 150,000 hotel rooms, you can guess that this week is not the Zen getaway you thought it might be.
Las Vegas, with its killer combo of the world’s biggest places to congregate to watch sports and bet on it, is the place to be during a big sports weekend. And the casinos’ parties for major events like the Super Bowl are legendary. In the coming years, the economic impact of people traveling to watch the Super Bowl in Vegas, even when the game isn’t in town, is nearing $1 billion. March Madness, the annual NCAA basketball tournament, is typically held in March and yes, you can bet on college basketball here.
February is typically a busy month, not just for the Super Bowl. Lunar New Year falls in February, and lion dancers and dragons parade through the street. Casinos have their own spectacular lion dances and hand out red envelopes with money. The Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Garden creates a fifth season for the Lunar New Year, and these are often the most theatrical and dramatic displays of the year. Vegas has trademarked its “Wedding Capital of the World” moniker, and you’ll see more proposals and more wedding parties – in restaurants, chapels, walking through casino floors – than you could ever imagine. For context: Las Vegas has officiated the weddings of more than five million couples.
The official start of summer isn’t until after Memorial Day. But in fact, the pools open in March. During these typically warm times, the day clubs get jam-packed with party people. Combine that with March Madness, and you can bet on some crowds. But then add to that the fact that March is a typically busy month for convention attendance – a half million or so in one month of nearly four million visitors – and you’ve found your crowd.
Las Vegas pools typically close for the season in October, but there are a few that stay open all year. Some of my favorite pool days have been in September and October when the pool scene is a little mellower and temperatures have cooled to the equivalent of everyone else’s summer.
Although the pools open earlier than May, this is the month they hit their sweet spot, with temperatures hot but not brutal, and pleasant nighttime temperatures, plus Memorial Weekend festivities with the biggest DJs and the biggest and most excited crowds. This being high season, you can count on high room rates. But also do some planning: May is also the month that 400,000 revelers descend on Las Vegas for the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC), the largest electronic music carnival in the world. You’ll either want to plan for it or plan to avoid it.
The best day trips around Las Vegas are in nature. Considering that, you’ll want to day trip in temperatures you can stand (read: not August). Destinations like the Valley of Fire, the Hoover Dam, and the Red Rock National Conservation Area are great to visit during the spring and fall months. Late fall, when the parks are least busy, well into December and January, are the sleeper-hit months for day trips.
