Over 30 million people visit Las Vegas every year, with approximately 300,000 of them arriving just to celebrate New Years Eve. While many cities such as New York and Tokyo have large crowds and a heavy tourism industry, Las Vegas is unique in that most of its visitors are concentrated along a single four mile long stretch of road (Las Vegas Blvd. between Sahara Avenue and Tropicana Avenue) known as the Las Vegas strip.
18 of the 25 largest hotels IN THE WORLD are on this four mile length of road. That is some seriously heavy concentration.
I've visited Las Vegas 16 times so far and have seen unbelievable crowds you do not want to encounter. You're supposed to be on vacation! Standing on long lines several times per day is, in my opinion, not part of a fun vacation.
You want a quick breakfast in the coffee shop? 50 people are on line ahead of you. A latte at Starbucks? 30 people ahead of you. Lunch at the buffet? 300 people ahead of you.
I've actually counted (approximately, by counting estimated groups of 10) 500 people standing on a buffet line. In your home town, if there was a line of 500 people waiting for any trivial daily activity, you would probably turn around and leave.
If you have a vacation week already scheduled and are going to visit Las Vegas, you're pretty much stuck. But if you're still free to select dates for a vacation, you can easily avoid huge crowds in Las Vegas. You just need to remember a few basic facts, and bookmark one web site.
The most important fact to keep in mind is that Fridays, Saturdays, holidays and the day before holidays, are more crowded than other days.
The "bigger" the holiday, the bigger the crowds. I mistakenly visited Las Vegas on December 24 and 25 one year, thinking "everyone will be at home with their families for Christmas." Nope. These dates had the worst crowds I'd ever seen. Sidewalks in some places were packed full of people, like the first few rows of a huge concert.
New Years Eve is probably the single most crowded day the Las Vegas strip experiences.
The second most important fact to keep in mind is, nobody wants to go to the desert in the summer. August is the slowest month in Las Vegas. It's also close to 110 degrees every day. If dry desert heat doesn't bother you so much, August is a good time to visit.
The web site you want to bookmark is:
Las Vegas convention calendar
which shows all upcoming conventions and the number of attendees. While a Tuesday in August should be a good time to visit Las Vegas, check the convention calendar first. You don't want to be reserving a room at Mandalay Bay if 5,000 real estate agents are having a convention in the Mandalay Bay convention hall that day.
While some conventions will only fill up a few hotels in the area near the convention, others (like the annual Consumer Electronics Show, which attracts about 150,000 people over a three day period) will sell out almost every hotel on the strip. (Las Vegas has a total of about 125,000 hotel rooms as of 2008 and hosts about 3,700 conventions per year.) The biggest hotels on the strip have around 3,000 rooms each, so don't worry about conventions with 50, 100 or even 500 attendees. 1,000 might fill up a particular hotel on a weekend or holiday (considering the usual hotel occupancy, plus the convention). Over 2,000, I'd rule out that hotel or area unless it's a weekday in August or other slow time of year. Conventioneers don't always book a room at the same property that's hosting the convention either, and perhaps half of them won't show up; so you can only use the convention calendar as a general guide. The hotel's reservation web page is a more accurate indication of how crowded they will be... prices will increase as the number of unbooked rooms decreases; and the site will also tell you when certain dates are sold out.
The National Finals Rodeo, held in early to mid December every year, brings thousands of rodeo fans to the Las Vegas strip. However, this event is spread out over ten days, so the crowds are not too bad.
If you dislike heat and crowds, the weekdays after the National Finals Rodeo ends but before Christmas Eve, is a very good time to visit Las Vegas. It's my favorite time to go. The weather is normally mild during the day - 50s to 60s with no rain - and cold at night, 30s to 40s.
January can be a difficult month crowd-wise. This year (2008) I thought about visiting in January but all the hotel rates were insanely high, even on weekdays; which means they're expecting to be close to fully booked.
In addition to the convention calendar, hotel web sites are your best resource for determining how crowded that particular hotel will be on specific dates. Click on RESERVATIONS and check out the rates. You'll often see patterns like $119 for several days in a row, then a spike to $249 for a few days. This is an early warning to you that the hotel will be crowded on those dates, even if there is no convention going on. If you see this pattern of a higher price for specific dates on several hotel reservation calendars, then this means the entire strip is likely to be crowded on those dates. It's not always conventions that bring crowds - there are often megastar concerts and sporting events (mostly indoor sports like boxing matches) luring extra tourists.
February and March should have more uncrowded dates than January, but the weather can be unpleasant, with heavy rains and high winds. Unfortunately the weather can't be predicted far enough in advance for vacation planning.
I hope this information will help you avoid standing in line for an hour to eat lunch during your next trip to Las Vegas.
