Fremont Street Experience Bets on Nostalgia for New Year’s Eve Party

Originally published at Vital Vegas

Fremont Street Experience has announced its New Year’s Eve party line-up, and it’s full of throwback favorites.

This year’s ’80s and ’90s-themed NYE party will feature Vanilla Ice, Village People, Bobby Brown and Tone Loc.

Early bird tickets, now on sale, are $35. Get tickets here. At that price point, this is arguably one of the best NYE values in Las Vegas.

New Year’s Eve at Fremont Street Experience works a little differently than the typical concerts. It’s a special event, and is therefore ticketed, so it’s not free.

No ticket, no entry.

The best part of Fremont Street on NYE is there are zero annoying pickle tub drummers. That alone is worth the price of admission.

The second best thing is it’s a 21-or-older event. As Fremont Street should always be, actually, but we don’t run the world. Bonus: No strollers allowed!

The third best thing is we don’t have to work on New Year’s Eve at Fremont Street Experience. We did for six years (doing FSE’s digital marketing), it was exhausting.

Leave it to us to find a way to complain about one of the best jobs in the world. (They’re still looking for a replacement, so drop them a line if you’re into downtown, social marketing and you’re also a genius at content creation. Good luck filling our incredibly big shoes.)

On NYE, there will be live entertainment on all three stages along Fremont Street. There will also be an additional EDM stage, which has been a big hit the last few years.

EDM stands for “electric dance music,” old timer.

Nobody doesn’t love Vanilla Ice, Village People, Bobby Brown and Tone Loc!

Well, other than maybe Whitney Houston, but her hologram hasn’t said anything about Bobby Brown’s domestic violence allegations recently, so bygones. Why do you always have to make things awkward?

How about this? Nobody doesn’t love the music of Vanilla Ice, Village People, Bobby Brown and Tone Loc!

Just go with it.

And we aren’t going to talk about the fact the Village People only has one of its original members (the cop). There you go making it awkward again.

You can pretty much guess the setlists for these performances. Everybody’s doing their top 2-3 hits and something new they’ve been working on that will get a collective golf clap.

It’s a can’t-miss formula for one of the best ways to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Vegas.

Outdoor venue, no masks required.

The Strip’s NYE spectacle-slash-shitshow has its moments, but there are numerous logistical annoyances, including traffic, parking and finding a restroom.

Fremont Street Experience is a more controlled, secure environment on NYE. The ticket price is more symbolism than anything, as the event isn’t really expected to make a profit. It’s a way to get people to Fremont Street and into the casinos.

The casinos along Fremont (some, not all, long story) are the ones who pay for the event, by the way. FSE has tried a number of formats for its NYE party in recent years. For awhile, they hired big headliners, but the cost couldn’t really be justified.

For a few years, the entertainment was cover bands. Talented, but pretty much the same bands that play every night on Fremont Street.

This retro program is sort of a happy middle, and gives FSE a marketing hook without breaking the bank on talent.

We hear more entertainment is yet to be announced, so stay tuned. Our money’s on at least one female act, as the current mix is awash in testosterone. Just saying.

Beyond the bands, guests will get to enjoy the renovated Viva Vision video screen, if not one of the Seven Wonders of the World, then certainly among the top Three Wonders of Las Vegas, after the Bellagio fountains and our lap, if you get our drift.

The screen is now so bright, you can see it during daylight hours.

Honestly, FSE doesn’t really have to do much of anything to pack Fremont Street on New Year’s Eve. It’s like St. Paddy’s Day and Halloween.

If you pour it, they will come.

Fremont Street Experience was hit pretty hard during the pandemic, as its “moneymakers,” the SlotZilla zipline (casinos used to contribute substantial amounts of money to pay for Fremont Street Experience, now it’s zipline money) and live entertainment (which draws crowds) were taken out of action.

Fremont Street Experience is the marketing arm of its member casinos: Binion’s and Four Queens (same owner), The D and Golden Gate (same owner, and by extension Circa), Fremont (and by extension The Cal and Main Street Station) and Golden Nugget.

Fremont Street Experience got a new President and CEO, Andrew Simon, in late 2020.

Prior to Simon’s arrival, Fremont Street Experience suffered a couple of big financial hits.

Its “Fear the Walking Dead Survival” attraction closed in April 2019 after less than two years. The walk-through haunted house was fairly popular, but the licensing fees with AMC made the operation unsustainable.

FSE was also bamboozled into producing a pricey faux reality series, “The Downtown Vegas Reality Show.” While producers (one claimed to have invented Jerry’s Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee”) promised the production would be paid for by selling the series to a distributor or streaming platform, that was never going to be a thing (an “industry-renowned sales agent” has turned up bupkis) and it’s unlikely the show will ever see the light of day. Which, trust us, is for the best.

Things have turned around at FSE following the pandemic, but staffing continues to be a big challenge, leading to limited operational capacity for SlotZilla.

Halloween was an unmitigated success for Fremont Street Experience and its affiliated casinos, and we trust New Year’s Eve will be the same.

You can get more information about tickets and security and other details on the official VegasExperience.com site.

While the fireworks at Fremont Street Experience are virtual, the nearby Plaza has put on NYE fireworks in recent years, so they’ll probably do it again.

Las Vegas on New Year’s Eve is wild, weird and wonderful. And, honestly, Fremont Street Experience is the market leader in those things, so we’ll probably see you there.