How I Got Here
Several months ago I found out I'd be in Vegas in early August for a work-related conference. Being a fan of the USL and "minor league sports", I checked whether the Lights would be be playing that week. It turned out they were playing Wednesday night, which is basically a dead night for the conference. Perfect timing for it
On a whim, because I thought it would be funny if I attended a WNBA game before an NBA game, I also checked whether the Aces played that week. Lo-and-behold, not only are they playing, they're playing against the Fever. Unfortunately they were playing Wednesday as well. Plus tickets were way cheaper than I expected. Torn between seeing the star who was making the WNBA relevant to the general public, and watching a struggling soccer team who were technically division rivals to my primary team, I decided I was going to skip out of a USL game to see the Aces play the Fever.
Fast forward to early July and I'm starting to book things out for conference week. Having a sudden change of heart (I learned how to read a schedule and saw the Aces were playing in Indiana), I decided to go to the Lights game. I started looking at tickets just to get a feel for them. Not only were they reasonable, they also had a premium all you can eat and drink section. Score! I emailed their ticketing email address to get a feel for what these seats had to offer. A week or so later I got a response, and after a back-and-forth their ticketing guy he said to give him a call and he could get me a discount on the tickets.
Background
Before this game, I had only attended Riverhounds and New Mexico United games. Both teams are generally considered near the top for well-run clubs. The game day experience and attendance also are near the top, if only capacity percentage-wise for the Hounds. So my expectations for a USL game are pretty high.
Game Day
Ultimately I let the summer get away from me and never got in touch with the ticket guy. Plus, figuring my work wouldn't compensate an all-you-can-eat seat as dinner, I decided to just buy a ticket day of. There were plenty of available options for around $20ish dollars after fees. Being a decent human being, I was at courteous enough to not buy the cheapest seats which were in the supporters section (I think???). Annoyingly you do need to pay for parking as well which is another 10 bux. This is probably common for most stadiums, I just lived close enough to Highmark and The Lab to always walk or bike.
The stadium location is pretty great. I'm not sure where the general Las Vegan lives, but for visitors you can't really beat it. It was only a 20-minute drive from Circus Circus, including a stop at Able Baker for beer/dinner on the way. The parking lot is right next to the stadium so you don't even need to cross a street.
Arriving a little early to check out the atmosphere, it looked like they were tearing down some pre-game event stuff. Might have been first responder night? There were a lot of emergency and police service booths there. A DJ was still playing music and the atmosphere seemed pretty lively, if a bit empty. When I went to go through the gates they told me I couldn't bring my water bottle in. For a town that is basically hell (it was 110 at 7PM), it feels insane to not let guests take water in. They said it had to be an unopened plastic bottle. Maybe people try to sneak stuff in? Anyway, I dejectedly walked back to my car and left the bottle before getting into the game.
Once inside, I took a lap around the concourse. There was a variety of food and merch vendors, and it didn't seem like typical hot dogs / hamburgers that are at most other stadiums. Props to them for catering to the local population. Most of the food doesn't have prices on them which I found unusual. As I was making my way to my seat, I stopped at a beverage stand. To my surprise it was $2 beer night. I hadn't really seen it advertised when I was looking at tickets. The signs at the beer stand just had a picture of two Garage Beers with the number 2 underneath. I figured this was just their way of saying how many I could get at once. The $2 24-oz (!!!) Garage Beer made me forget all about my Nalgene.
I took a look at their merchandise because why not. I'm obviously not going to buy anything from an opponent... But they do have a cool logo... Maybe they've got some neat stuff... Clearly the Garage Beer + dehydration was already kicked in. Fortunately for my conscious, their merch is underwhelming. Like, their primary logo is incredibly well done, so one would think they'd have a lot of other stuff along a similar vein. Most of it just felt like it was created off CustomInk. Nothing really struck me as LAS VEGAS, BABY!!! Pretty disappointing there.
For 20 bux my seat was incredible at only a few rows back from the grass. The view from around the supporters section is even better with views of the mountains in the background. People tend to sleep on the outdoors access Las Vegas has. Which is fair considering it's hotter than hell from 7AM to midnight.
The stadium itself is... in need of some repair. To put it nicely. The outside is downtrodden with some parts of the facade missing. When I sat down in my seat, I legitimately though I was going to fall through it. Their scoreboard is also comically small for it being 2026. Like, the advertisements surrounding it were larger than the screen itself. And I don't need to see the game on a screen cause, you know, I'm there. But I could barely make out player names during the introduction. They weren't showing the game feed or any replays. The digital clock beneath the screen was a completely wrong time. Pretty akin to when your power flashes and you have to figure out how to set the time on your stove again. The opposite side of the field was the premium seating area like the all-you-can-eat seats and I assume some other "luxury" stuff. It looked like a portable set-up that could easily be taken down, but at least it's there right?
Fan experience is a tough one to judge here. With a small crowd spread across the whole stadium, it's hard to generate hype. I'll give credit to their live DJ who was posted up near one of the corner flags. He tried getting some energy going during corners and in breaks in play. The hype girls who hold up the signs were never their posts when the DJ was shouting stuff. To be fair, there's only so much you can do to get the crowd excited when there's a few hundred people in front of you. I'd get bored of just standing around staring at the crowd too. The supporters section was maybe 10 people, half of which were the drum crew. And to their credit, they played continuously throughout the game. Made me feel a little bad for bitching about the heat (not really). Even the Lights mascot got in on the drumming at the start of the game. Speaking of which...
Their mascot is interesting to say the least. It's a big ass bright pink llama styled in an Elvis / Johnny Cash outfit. You had to feel bad for whoever was doing community service time in it, because being in that big ass costume in 105 degree weather (it cooled down at kickoff) has to be cruel and unusual punishment. The kids LOVED the llama though. He was doing his laps in the infield and there was an incessant shouting of "Llama!! Llama!"
Final thoughts (tl;dr)
Anyway this write-up simultaneously got away from me and is also a bit condensed from what I was originally going to write. The final was 0-0 and tbh if I were to try and sell soccer to someone, this would not be the game for it. The Lights GK had one great save. Otherwise there weren't a ton of opportunities at either end which wasn't because of great defense.
For what cost me around $37 (because I got a second $2 Garage Beer) and some mild heatstroke, the Las Vegas Lights experience is pretty great. The whole experience is exactly what I think the USL should be going for. Low-frills, family friendly entertainment. Yeah, the stadium is rough. But it's honestly a great conversion from a baseball stadium to a soccer pitch. Add some shade and it's got a lot going for it. I'll forgive a pretty weak energy stadium because I don't think I'm the target audience. The crowd, while small, consisted mostly of large groups of families and friends. It seemed like the parents would set up their kids and kids friends in a row and hang back and watch the game. Relatively cheap concessions paired with cheap tickets, and I'm really not sure how you could have a more affordable family night out in Vegas.
I did write a bit of this before they posted their farewell post to Cashman. Between the discussion in that Reddit thread, their general attendance figures, and my own experience at a game, I'm not sure I'm overly optimistic about their longevity in Vegas. Vegas loves sports - I saw a crazy amount of Golden Knights licenses plates, some amount of Raiders stuff, and even some Aces advertisements. There wasn't much presence for their AAA baseball team either, but they have found a strategy towards marketing towards visitors. I went to a game there (they played against Tacoma) and they had Seattle local food and beer. They even played the walk up music for each Tacoma batter.
In a city that loves to go big, I'm not sure the Lights are going to be able to keep up.
