No Parking For You At New Venues Like The Sphere Or LA’s SoFi

04.12.2023 - 12:33 / forbes.com

Amphitheater and stadium designers wouldn’t build a venue without toilets. So why do they persist in building structures without parking?

Arena builders seem to have forgotten that most Americans drive to entertainment events. Private cars may be a nuisance to arena operators, but they are a necessity to most customers, especially those that drive long distances to see their favorite band or team.

The arena industry is stumbling on how to get crowds in and out of shiny new arenas like SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, and now the Sphere as well.

Concert halls, football stadiums and multipurpose arenas are important to travel and tourism. Yet developers don’t want to use precious real estate on parking. A 30,000-car parking lot takes up lots of space, while most football stadiums will only have ten or so games a year.

As the YouTuber City Nerd (Ray Delahanty @Nerd4Cities) says, NFL stadiums are “parking and traffic nightmares.” He says “call me a rail snob” but having a rail connection to the stadium is key. As those of us who have tried to get to events by surface streets know, “buses get snarled in the same traffic that cars do.”

And like many, “he likes to have a few beverages at the stadium,” so driving isn’t ideal. Unfortunately he could barely put together a list of ten NFL stadiums accessible by decent public transit. The top five were the Vikings US Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis (which even encourages “railgating”), Soldier Field in Chicago, Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field, Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, and Lumen Field in Seattle, all within a 15-minute walk of a metro rail line station.

The problems extend to smaller venues as well. In October, I attended the U2 show at The Sphere in Las Vegas. My friends and I stayed at the Venetian across the street. We literally walked through the venue’s convention center across a bridge into The Sphere. However, it took more than half an hour to walk back into the Venetian after the show, as the narrow corridors were jammed with thousands of concertgoers heading to the Venetian’s parking lots.

The Sphere, which opened at the end of September 2023, can hold 18,600 concertgoers. Yet there are only 304 parking spots on site. As Casino.org reported, "Self-parking on site will be $100, while valet parking will cost $125. This sets a new record for Las Vegas parking, which up until seven years ago was free everywhere on the Strip that a concert was ever staged.”

To be fair, The Sphere can be reached by Las Vegas monorail; the Flamingo/Caesars Palace Station is a 4-minute walk. It can be reached by city buses well as Lyft and Uber, although rideshare drivers complained about congestion. But most people will drive and try to figure