Big festival slated for downtown Las Vegas

Huge news: A sprawling new festival of music, food and art will arrive in downtown Las Vegas in the fall of 2013 - and it will be staged by the company that promotes the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco.

Three serious groups are creating the Life is Beautiful festival.

First, there's the promoter Another Planet, which stages Outside Lands and Treasure Island fests in San Francisco.

Second, there's the marketing group MAKTUB, which runs First Friday.

And third, this is the brainchild of Aurelian Marketing Group's Rehan Choudhry, who gave The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas its good-music imprint as entertainment director.

Today, Life is Beautiful organizers will announce the two-day concert (lifeisbeautifulfestival.com), but they gave me launch details on Sunday.

Their idea is to present top acts, artists and culinary outlets in venues across downtown at a "really affordable" rate.

The fest is a year away, so it's too early to know which musicians will be available on tour.

"Headliners will be arena-size acts," says Allen Scott, booking vice president at Another Planet Entertainment.

Scott hopes Life is Beautiful grows as big as the acclaimed and popular Outside Lands., which featured Metallica, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Jack White and Skrillex in its diverse lineup in August.

"I think this will be exciting to the industry, and I think we'll have a number of artists who want to do this," Scott says.

He expects tickets to go on sale in spring or early summer.

Organizers will consider media partners such as YouTube, TV, radio and satellite radio.

"What sets a festival apart is the location - whether that's in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, or the Polo Fields in Indio, Calif. (where Coachella happens), or in downtown Las Vegas," Scott says.

"This is a unique location. And it's also a destination that's easy to get to."

Choudhry says they're already working feverishly.

"There's so much history there (in downtown Vegas), and there's so much beauty there, and we're just gonna leverage every piece of it."

Choudhry says he learned at The Cosmopolitan how strong the local community is in embracing new ventures and good music.

"This is a large-scale event, and it will be right in the heart of our city. This is ours. We're going to collectively, inclusively own this thing. We're going to show the world what Vegas can do again."

Choudhry says organizers haven't run into obstacles so far. "The response I constantly get is, 'This sounds amazing, how can I help you?' "

Joey Vanas, who runs First Friday, says Las Vegans have wanted something like this ever since the Vegoose festival ended.

Life is Beautiful could be structured so people can pop in and out, unlike other megafests.

"I think it will be much bigger than anything we've seen in Vegas," Vanas says.

Vanas says it's far easier to make this happen here than other cities, thanks to cooperation between government and business.

"Yes, you have to get everything done properly (in regulatory terms). But there are people there to help you. They're not trying to throw up blockades and hit you for more money every time you turn around."

Vanas says Vegas' public-private cooperation helped sway Another Planet Entertainment to promote Life is Beautiful.

"We were doing walk-throughs with the guys from Another Planet, and we bumped into the guys from the fire department on the street, and they said, 'Whatever you need, let us know.'

"And they (the Another Planet people) looked at me afterwards and said, 'Are you kidding me? That's how it is around here?'

"And we were, like, 'Yeah, bro, we just went to Burning Man with that guy!'

"That makes people want to be part of it even more so."

Doug Elfman's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Email him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.