Fremont Street Experience Announces New Year’s Eve Line-Up

By Scott Roeben, on October 27 2022
5 min read 4 comments
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Fremont Street Experience (FSE) has announced its entertainment line-up for New Year’s Eve 2022. Or possibly 2023. It’s confusing, really. It’s New Year’s Eve of 2022, but at midnight, it’s not 2022 anymore. It’s 2023. A new year, hence the name. Either way, the party happens on the evening of December 31, 2022. It’s 2023 that’s being rung in, just to be clear. We’re actually just rambling on to build up the suspense of the announcement.

This year’s New Year’s Eve party at Fremont Street Experience, dubbed the “Time of Your Life Festival” for some reason, will feature live performances by Bush, Sugar Ray, The Wailers featuring Julian Marley, Sugarhill Gang, All-4-One, Tag Team and DJ Skribble.

Or what’s known in the business as “a fairly inexpensive collection of throwback acts you sort of know but, honestly, who cares, it’s Fremont Street on New Year’s Eve?”

No, this guy isn’t a time traveler, our Photoshop skills are just dope.

Seriously, though, Fremont Street Experience has arguably the best NYE party in Las Vegas, and is definitely one of the best values. Tickets are just $50-ish. Learn more.

As we said, it’s not really about who’s performing. Attendance at this event is roughly the same year after year, whether it’s an expensive headliner or bargain tribute acts.

Why are the tickets so relatively cheap? Downtown casinos (the ones paying for the acts) want to attract large groups of people who drink and gamble. Generally, Fremont Street Experience isn’t tasked with making money. The goal is crowds, and they’re allowed to break even (or even lose money, but that’s rare these days due to modest spending on entertainment).

Anyway, enough inside baseball (we worked in Digital Marketing at Fremont Street Experience for six years), let’s learn more about New Year’s Eve 2022 or possibly 2023 at Fremont Street Experience.

We figured these acts were already doing a tour with the “Time of Your Life Festival” brand, but after both minutes of research online, we couldn’t find any trace of it. Which means FSE is going for a music festival vibe layered on top of the fact it’s New Year’s Eve?

The kids love music festivals, so just play along!

Each of the groups in the line-up have 1-2 hits you’ll recognize, so that should make for a fun night of sing-along revelry.

It’s live music for 60 bucks (after fee and tax), stop yer whining.

The NYE extravaganza at Fremont Street Experience will feature the usual hoopla, including a countdown at midnight hosted by Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman and, we can only pray, no sign of Zowie Bowie.

At midnight, revelers will be treated to onstage pyrotechnics and a virtual fireworks display on the Viva Vision screen, touted as the world’s largest video screen. Although, it depends upon who you ask, because it’s complicated and involves lots of technical things we don’t fully understand like “nits.” We’re with Wikipedia on this one, despite what the Guinness World Record people claim or what China did for the Olympics.

Anyway, there will probably be live fireworks at Plaza. While not officially part of the Fremont Street Experience, Plaza delivers on the pew-pew, very popular with NYE celebrants for whatever reason.

Fun fact: Circa isn’t, technically, part of Fremont Street Experience. (Its sister casinos, The D and Golden Gate are.) Nor are The Cal and Main Street (both are owned by Boyd, like Fremont casino, which is a member). They’re sort of “associate” members. Circa’s not part of FSE because there aren’t any “shares” left, legally. The Cal and Main Street aren’t members because Boyd Gaming didn’t want to pay the dues. Nobody really pays dues anymore because the SlotZilla zipline pays for Fremont Street Experience. From what we recall, the casinos used to contribute $35,000 a month to Fremont Street Experience (Golden Gate was less due to its size). Where else will you get all this inside scoop? Also, why would you want all this inside scoop when you’re just trying to find out how much a damn ticket is going to cost for NYE at FSE?

The biggest selling point of New Year’s Eve at Fremont Street Experience is it’s utterly unique. The environment, the energy, the incomparable neon, the good gambling and closeness of everything to everything else (you can hit 10 casinos without breaking a sweat, good luck with that on The Strip) make Fremont Street irresistible. The Viva Vision screen, overhauled not long ago, is stunning and the creative on the screens is more advanced and agog-evoking than ever.

No Fremont Street fireworks show has ever been canceled due to high winds, so there’s that.

Most people still go to the NYE celebration on The Strip, but it’s fraught with headaches. Downtown, you can actually go into casinos and use the restrooms. On The Strip during NYE, not so much. Porta Potties aren’t our idea of a great time on New Year’s Eve.

Traffic can get dense downtown on New Year’s Eve, but it’s nowhere near the nightmare The Strip becomes with its frustrating road closures.

FSE has cunningly provided a comparison between NYE downtown and on The Strip. We would say “shots fired,” but we don’t want to make it awkward. We’ve always thought such comparisons seem a little thirsty, but facts are facts, downtown is just a better, safer, less aggravating experience.

As for details about FSE’s NYE party (sorry, “music festival”), you can check out between NYE downtown and on The Strip on the official site where you can also purchase tickets. Prices go up as NYE approaches. (The bulk of FSE NYE tickets are sold a day or two before NYE, or day-of. People never stop peopling.)

As we said, tickets are $50-ish, because FSE adds a gratuitous $5.05 “processing fee” just to annoy us. The $4.95 Live Entertainment Tax isn’t optional, so that makes the final ticket price $60. A pittance compared to other NYE parties in Las Vegas.

Gates open at 6:00 p.m. Prior to that, the street closes and there’s a thorough security sweep with adorable bomb-sniffing dogs you shouldn’t try to pet if you like your fingers. Kidding, they’re sweet, they just have a job to do.

Once the gates open, everyone gets a wristband. You’re on your own with drinks and food, as the free onstage entertainment is the only thing included in the ticket price. There are tons of great options within the party footprint, and many others outside it (such as in the Fremont East district).

The FSE NYE event is restricted to those 21 or older, one of our favorite sentences to type, ever.

There’s a lot of sweeping to be done when it’s over. We should get some sort of credit for that Sugar Ray reference.

Security is extensive on New Year’s Eve, so plan to arrive early and do some deep breathing.

between NYE downtown and on The Strip provides more information about the venue’s “Clear Bag Policy,” presumably. The FAQ on VegasExperience.com suggests people visit VegasExperience.com for more information. Look, we don’t work there anymore or we’d fix that. We’d also make sure “FAQ’s” doesn’t have an apostrophe or “s” in it.  FAQ stands for “frequently asked questions,” so the apostrophe and “s” are not needed. This is just one of the many reasons FSE was probably happy to see us go. We are high maintenance.

Rideshare is supposed to drop you at one of two locations, 4th Street and Fremont Street or 1st Street and Fremont Street, but it’s pretty much chaos that night, so be forewarned.

While there are lots of things between now and New Year’s Eve (Halloween, paying your rent or mortgage, Thanksgiving, paying your rent or mortgage, Christmas, paying your rent or mortgage), it can’t hurt to start firming up your plans. We tend to wait until the last minute for everything (like starting our Christmas shopping on Dec. 24), but you don’t want to leave NYE to chance. Vegas fills up fast.

If you need another reason to do NYE on Fremont Street, how’s this? By New Year’s Eve, Fremont casino will debut its casino expansion and new food court. More cheap eats for New Year’s Eve!

Also by New Year’s Eve, Plaza should have some new enhancements, including an expansion at Oscar’s Steakhouse and a new Pinkbox Doughnuts. An outdoor bar is coming to Plaza’s porte cochere in March 2023, Carousel Bar. Oh, and Plaza will also open a new smoke-free casino area by NYE. Our second favorite sentence to type, ever.

New Year’s Eve on Fremont Street is always, always a memorable time, despite the fact they memories are a little fuzzy. This year, you’ll have some fuzzy Bush, too.

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