Las Vegas Events Calendar: The Weekends That Run the City
Las Vegas does not have random expensive weekends. Every price spike on the Strip traces back to a named event with a date, a crowd and a booking window, and almost all of them are announced a year or more ahead. This calendar is the system behind our event guides: the big weekends ranked, each month on its own page, and every major event with its own planning guide covering dates, crowd, hotel price impact, when to book, tickets and what it does to flights.
The next big weekends
| Dates | Event | Hotel pressure | Plan it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sat Oct 31, 2026 | Halloween on the Strip and Fremont Street | High | Halloween parties guide · Halloween hub |
| Nov 3 to 6, 2026 | SEMA Show, about 153,000 attendees at the Convention Center | High | SEMA Show 2026 guide |
| Nov 19 to 21, 2026 | Las Vegas Grand Prix, night race on the Strip, Saturday Nov 21 | Extreme | F1 hub · Road closures · Race week survival guide |
| Nov 26 to 29, 2026 | Thanksgiving weekend | Moderate-High | November 2026 events |
| Dec 3 to 12, 2026 | Wrangler National Finals Rodeo, 175,846 fans in 2025 | High | NFR 2026 guide |
| Dec 31, 2026 | New Year's Eve, America's Party on the Strip | Extreme | New Year's Eve guide |
| Jan 6 to 9, 2027 | CES, about 148,000 attendees | Extreme | CES 2027 guide |
| Jan 18 to 22, 2027 | The January Collision: World of Concrete plus SHOT Show, about 100,000 convention visitors the same week | Extreme | The January Collision |
| May 14 to 16 and May 21 to 23, 2027 | EDC Las Vegas, two weekends for the first time, 500,000+ attendees in 2026 | Extreme | EDC Las Vegas 2027 guide |
Month by month
- November 2026: SEMA, the Grand Prix and Thanksgiving stack the year's strongest month.
- December 2026: ten nights of rodeo, then the quietest cheap week of the season, then New Year's Eve.
- January 2027: CES, the World of Concrete and SHOT Show collision, AVN. The highest pressure month of the quarter.
The flagship guides
- Formula 1: the Grand Prix hub, road closures and transport, what F1 week costs, where to watch without a ticket and the best hotels for race week.
- Conventions: every major 2027 convention, the convention attendee survival guide, hotels near the Convention Center and restaurants nearby.
- Rodeo: the NFR guide with tickets, the Thomas & Mack, and where the after parties happen.
- Sports weekends: the Las Vegas sports hub covers Raiders and Golden Knights game days, UFC at T-Mobile (how to attend UFC in Las Vegas), the Las Vegas Bowl and the 2027 college football championship.
- Holidays: Christmas in Las Vegas and the New Year's Eve guide.
Events move flights too
The same weekends that spike hotel rates spike airfares, usually harder. The Las Vegas Flight Price Calendar rates all 61 weekends through New Year's 2027-28 with the event causing each spike, so you can see the flight side of any event on this page before you book either half of the trip.
How to use this calendar
Pick your dates first if you can: shifting a trip one week away from an Extreme weekend is the single biggest saving in Las Vegas travel. If your dates are the event, book the hotel the day you commit, take the flight second (flights reprice up too, but hotels sell out), and use the event's own guide for the logistics that generic advice misses, like which streets close and which monorail station actually serves the venue.
Frequently asked questions
What is the busiest weekend in Las Vegas?
New Year's Eve and the Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend in November fight for the title, with CES week in early January close behind. The Grand Prix (Nov 19 to 21, 2026) closes parts of the Strip itself, while CES (Jan 6 to 9, 2027) fills about 148,000 attendees' worth of hotel rooms. Super Bowl weekend in February is the biggest betting weekend of the year even though the game itself is played elsewhere.
How far ahead should I book a hotel for a big Las Vegas event?
For the top tier (Grand Prix, CES, New Year's Eve, EDC), book the moment your dates are fixed; rates only climb and the good locations sell out. For mid tier conventions and fight weekends, four to eight weeks out is the sweet spot. For ordinary weekends, two to three weeks is fine. Our monthly event pages carry a book by note for every event, and the flight Price Calendar rates every weekend's pressure the same way.
What are the cheapest weeks to visit Las Vegas?
Generally the softest demand falls in mid December before Christmas week, the weeks right after New Year's once CES leaves, and the deep summer weekdays outside event weekends. The catch is that a single convention can flip a cheap week: about 100,000 extra convention visitors land in the World of Concrete and SHOT Show week of January 18 to 22, 2027, which looks quiet on a normal calendar and is anything but.
Where do I find what is on during my exact dates?
Start with the monthly page for your travel month below; every major event is listed with dates, expected crowd and what it does to hotel prices. Then open the event's own guide for tickets and logistics, and the flight Price Calendar to see what your weekend does to airfares.