Celebs pack Vegas for Mexican holiday
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Las Vegas never needs an excuse to party, and as an entertainment oasis a short trip from Mexico, the city will roll out the red, white and green carpet starting Friday to celebrate Mexican Independence Day.
A premier boxing match, a bell-ringing ceremony and more than a dozen performances by Latin megastars, including Ricky Martin and Alejandro Fernandez, were expected to attract tens of thousands of visitors, making the weekend once again one of Sin City’s busiest.
The holiday over time has become a star-studded celebration of Hispanic culture.
“It has developed over two decades or more to become a staple. Las Vegas has the ‘ambiente’ — the fun, the excitement — all year long, and then you bring in Alejandro Fernandez, Pepe Aguilar and the ones who have the residencies like Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez,” said Rafael Villanueva, senior director of international business sales for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
The celebration is so much wider it includes those superstars who aren’t Mexican, including Martin and Lopez, who both have Puerto Rican roots.
“If you talk to many people in Mexico, they’ll say if we are not going to the Ciudad de Mexico, we are coming to Las Vegas because of all the fun and all the entertainment,” he said.
The holiday marks Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla’s call to arms that sparked the Mexican uprising against Spanish rulers in 1810. The rebel priest was killed the next year, but his words, known as the “Cry of Dolores” or Grito de Dolores, eventually led to independence from Spain in 1821.
What started as private entertainment shows for high rollers from Latin America has evolved into one of the city’s busiest weekends, with companies booking performers a year in advance and airlines adding direct flights from Mexico.
The concert lineup aims to appeal to a range of musical tastes and generations and includes Marc Anthony, Ricardo Arjona, Emmanuel, Enrique Iglesias, Carlos Santana, Maná, Marco Antonio Solis, Jesse and Joy, Gloria Trevi and Alejandra Guzman.
Mexico’s popular Saul “Canelo” Alvarez will square off Saturday against Gennady Golovkin in a long-anticipated middleweight bout at the soldout T-Mobile Arena.
For the past three years, the tourist bureau’s occupancy rate records show hotels reached above 96 percent capacity during the three-day period associated with the holiday. In 2016, 98.4 percent of the city’s hotel and motel rooms were booked, making it the year’s fourth busiest weekend. “This is basically a citywide event that is anchored on entertainment plus, typically, the biggest fight of the year,” said Fedor Banuchi, vice president of entertainment at The Cosmopolitan, whose theater will host two concerts.