Las Vegas & The Bellagio Rooms For March-April

[Greg Ambrosius]

A lot of owners have been calling me about staying at the Bellagio for our live NFBC drafts in late March and early April and I've had to tell folks to hang on until I could secure some rooms. Well, I just returned from a conference in Las Vegas and we're no better off today on the rooms situation than we were before. And there are several reasons for that.

1. There are two HUGE conferences throughout Las Vegas March 23-27 and March 30-April 3 that are tying up room space at the Bellagio, Caesar's and other major hotels. There is a conference at the Bellagio March 23-27 that has every meeting room space in the building booked and most of the hotel rooms, plus you have the Second Weekend of March Madness. We are still working through the space for the Friday auctions, but Guest rooms are in the $360-$420 range. Easter weekend is similar for rooms, but we're fine on the meeting room space.

2. Las Vegas is getting so busy these days that to secure room blocks you need in the 150-175 rooms per night range to secure discounted rooms. In the past, we could do a couple dozen room nights and get discounted rooms, but things are changing not only at the Bellagio but all major casinos for conventions. I've been doing this in Las Vegas for 15 years and we ran into this before, but now it's even tougher. So we're doing all we can to host the NFBC and NFFC at the best hotels on The Strip without forcing anyone to stay there, but that makes it tougher then to get any room block for our guests.

3. We have some new contacts at the Bellagio that we're working with now and it's never easy to start over. We had some fantastic contacts before who knew us through the years and now we're reintroducing ourselves to these sales folks. Meeting them face-to-face this week was good and we'll be fine for 2015, but when you're an event that doesn't take 175 rooms per night you have to be patient with space and then hope for some discounted rooms. I'll keep trying for the latter and let you know if we can secure some.

At this point, I'd book my rooms as early as you can in Las Vegas, whether that's at the Bellagio or somewhere else. It's not going to get any cheaper as we get closer to March and I can't guarantee that the Bellagio will have discounted rooms for us. They are going to be completely full soon enough from what I'm hearing. Again, I'll keep working with my new contact to see what we can do and I'll reach out to everyone who has contacted me already, but don't be afraid to check out Cosmopolitan or Aria because they have cheaper rooms and the Tram drops you off right at the Bellagio Convention Center where we'll host the drafts. It's an easy way to still be right there.

Good luck everyone and secure your hotel rooms as early as possible and we'll see you in Las Vegas soon enough. That town is going to be hopping on those two weekends, so make your plans early. Trust me on that. And I'll keep working on the Bellagio and post any good news when/if I have it. Thanks.