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Thinking of a splurge to see the big game in Las Vegas this weekend? You’ll be competing with billionaires who are going to “have trouble parking their planes.”
By Shannon Sims
Shannon Sims, a frequent contributor to the Travel section, lives in Houston. She is watching the Super Bowl from her couch.
So you want to go to the Super Bowl this weekend. Even for non-football fans, this year’s spectacle of professional sports and over-the-top entertainment — in Las Vegas, no less — could be hard to resist.
Some of the best players of their generation, like Nick Bosa, Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, will take the field when the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs meet on Sunday. Off the field, the city will be packed with celebrities, including Usher (the halftime headliner), Luke Combs, Adele and Wu-Tang Clan — and those are just the weekend’s scheduled performers. So many people are expected this weekend, confirmed Monika Bertaki, the chief marketing officer at Harry Reid International Airport, that no airplane parking spots are available at Harry Reid, North Las Vegas or Henderson Executive Airports. It’s going to be a party.
If you can afford to go, that is. Considering the cost of flights, lodging, assorted travel expenses and entry into Allegiant Stadium, Super Bowl LVIII may be the most expensive to attend.
As of Tuesday, people were paying a median of $8,776 per ticket, according to data from the ticket marketplace Vivid Seats, thousands of dollars more than most recent Super Bowl matchups. Driving the demand are a number of factors, including the possibility of Taylor Swift attending, the stadium being one of the National Football League’s smallest in terms of capacity and Las Vegas hosting its first Super Bowl.
“Prices go up and down for Super Bowls, but they are going to be historically high for this one,” said Malcolm Robinson, owner of Houston Ticket Brokers, where tickets are going for more than $8,000.
For this year’s event, he said, “billionaires are going to have trouble parking their planes.”
Want to join this crowd? Let’s run the numbers.
Say you live in Houston and want to arrive in Las Vegas on Saturday, Feb. 10, the day before the big game, and leave on Monday, Feb. 12, the next day. You’re not alone; carriers like American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines have added domestic flights to meet demand. That hasn’t helped the cost: Airfare is still significantly costlier than a normal weekend to Las Vegas — about 112 percent higher compared with the same weekend last year, according to data from Priceline, an online travel agency.
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