FU F1 Festival (A.K.A. Neon City Festival) Lineup Announced
The free Neon City Festival, scheduled right on top of this year’s F1 race (intentionally), Nov. 21-23, 2025, has announced its lineup.
The roster includes Good Charlotte, Deadmau5, Breaking Benjamin, Two Friends, Fitz and the Tantrums, Bowling for Soup, De La Soul and others. Yes, we’ll give you the entire list, mostly because it will then look to search engines like we spent some time researching this despite the fact it was provided in a news release.
Inevitably, there are those who will complain about the Neon City Festival lineup. Those people skimmed right past the “free” part, the dopes.
The Neon City Festival was created as counter-programming to the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix, November 20-22, 2025, because F1 sucks the economic life out of Las Vegas, forcing everyone but a handful of Strip hotels to suffer through this misguided boondoggle.
Downtown, tired of being beaten up by the scourge that is the F1 race, decided to take action, creating a festival that features music, food and beverage vendors, scantily-clad young women and art installations.
The part about “scantily-clad young women” was not in the news release, but we were formerly a professional marketer, the festival should just trust us on this one.
The event is billed as a “festival without fences.” There are no tickets and bands appear on several stages at Fremont Street Experience and the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center (near The D).
Here’s the artwork with all the bands, which we will repeat following the image because we are thorough like that.
Beyond the headliners previously mentioned, there is a metric ass-ton of “supporting” talent.
Those bands include: Acraze, Redferrin, Waka Flocka Flame, Skeez, Knuckle Puck, 3OH!3, Halocene, Shaylen, Daring Greatly, Diva Bleach, Ethan Garner, Point North, 12 Volt Sex, Dez Hoston, Heroine Honey, Hoity-Toity, Kings/Kings, Michael Richter, Moonlght, No Proof, Pure Sport, The Dollheads, The Far Worst and The Out There.
Download Spotify, gramps!
The lineup still has some blurry bands, so expect further announcements of talent prior to the event.
One of the coolest things about the Neon City Festival is how it has brought all the downtown casinos together collaboratively in their open disdain of F1 and the boobs who thought bringing that race to Las Vegas was a good idea.
Music and contempt for F1’s negative impact on Las Vegas have brought together competing casinos and, while they’ll never say it out loud, lifelong enemies. The glorious drama!
The festival was created by casino owner Stevens (Circa, The D, Golden Gate), with support from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA).
The LVCVA’s support wasn’t voluntary, of course. There was a threat of a very public and embarrassing mutiny by downtown casinos who were financially hammered during the months leading up to the first F1 race. Tourism authorities touted the alleged economic windfall while completely ignoring the fact the vast majority of Las Vegas businesses are financially harmed by F1’s race and those losses are conveniently never deducted from the upside numbers because that would spoil the narrative.
The festival is overseen by Neon City Festival CEO and Circa Hospitality Group V.P. of Operations Jeff Victor. Victor was also our former boss at Fremont Street Experience. Trust us, if he could be our boss, Victor can accomplish anything. We are incorrigible. That sound you hear is everyone at Casino.org nodding. Rude.
The festival “founders” include: Derek Stevens (owner of Circa, Golden Gate, the D and Downtown Las Vegas Events Center), LVCVA, Steve Thompson (Sr. V.P. of operations at Fremont, California, Main Street), Terry Caudill (owner of Binion’s, 4 Queens), Chris Latil (Sr. V.P and G.M. of Golden Nugget), Jonathan Jossel (CEO of Plaza), Blake Sartini Jr. (Sr. V.P and G.M. of Strat), Andrew Simon (President and CEO of Fremont Street Experience), Joe Woody (G.M. of El Cortez) and Eric Buksa (G.M. of Downtown Grand).
Yes, Strat is downtown, technically. Some of these folks are part of Fremont Street Experience and others aren’t. Strat, Plaza, El Cortez and Downtown Grand are not. The $1.2 billion Circa isn’t, either. Ditto The Cal and Main Street. They’re “associate” members. It’s one of the more interesting Las Vegas stories, so, naturally, local media doesn’t talk about it.
We would provide a chart of the individuals who don’t care for each other, but far be it from us to be the one to jerk off the mask of civility. We will let others jerk off that polished exterior. We know and like most of the people mentioned, so we are not going to risk those relationships by jerking off anyone’s veneer of courtesy.
Look forward to further news about the Neon City Festival in the weeks to come, and we can’t wait to attend, assuming it’s 20% less loud than last year because free permanent hearing damage is still permanent hearing damage and please get off our lawn.
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