WrestleMania’s quick Las Vegas return required logistical shuffle

As WrestleMania 41 was taking place at Allegiant Stadium in April, WWE President Nick Khan was already planting the seed for a Las Vegas encore performance of professional wrestling’s biggest event.

WrestleMania 42 was originally expected to take place in New Orleans next year, but Khan was already impressed enough with what he saw in the week leading up to the two-day spectacle that is WrestleMania, and he asked Las Vegas Convention and Visitor Authority President and CEO Steve Hill if it were logistically possible to bring the event back to Sin City in 2026.

“Nick Khan approached me over the weekend of the event and said, ‘Is there any way that you guys could do this again next year,’ ” Hill told the Review-Journal. “I said ‘Well, I’m sure we can figure it out.’ It was not an easy process. The whole city was kind of working around this event and rose up and made it happen.”

Logistical task

WrestleMania week will again include the week-long fan fest WWE World at the Las Vegas Convention Center and three other WWE events at T-Mobile Arena in Friday Night SmackDown, Stand & Deliver and Monday Night Raw, with WrestleMania taking place at Allegiant Stadium. Ensuring each of those venues and other locations around the city where ancillary events will take place were available next year, on a short turnaround, also had to be sorted out.

“The stadium is pretty busy during that time next year so it’s a bit more of a compressed schedule at the stadium,” Hill said. “We’re (LVCVA) differently busy next year than this year at the convention center, so we had to move things around here at the convention center. T-Mobile had to do the same thing. Those things aren’t easy to do. But this city knows how to come together and make those things happen.”

Fantastic event

This year’s WrestleMania at Allegiant Stadium drew a two-day crowd of 124,693 fans and the largest gate — proceeds from ticket sales — in the event’s history, according to the WWE. The WWE also touted this year’s WrestleMania as the most watched of all-time and said they broke merchandise sales records.

“Las Vegas helped to deliver the biggest WrestleMania of all time, shattering records and delivering an amazing week for fans around the world,” Khan, who is a Las Vegas native, said in a statement.

Ahead of the event, officials said they expected WrestleMania week would net an economic impact of over $2oo million and draw 180,000 visitors to Las Vegas.

“The event itself was fantastic, and I know it exceeded everybody’s expectations,” Hill said. “It’s over a five-day period; it’s an extended stay kind of thing. It’s great for the city and obviously turned out great for WrestleMania and WWE as well.”

The LVCVA entered into a $5 million sponsorship agreement with WWE to host WrestleMania this year.

Deposits for priority passes for next year’s WrestleMania can be made via WWE’s hospitality partner On Location, with a ticket preregistration list also launching on Tuesday.

Event rotation list

The goal of the LVCVA is to attract the top events to Allegiant Stadium and thus far they have already hosted or have scheduled the biggest sporting events over the last several years. The Super Bowl was hosted there in 2024, WrestleMania this year, the College Football Playoff Championship game is slated to take place there in 2027 and the men’s college basketball Final Four is scheduled to be held in 2028.

The hope of the LVCVA is for Las Vegas to be on the rotation list to host those major events, with WrestleMania being the first to make a return trip to the nearly five-year-old, $2 billion stadium. The Super Bowl could return to Allegiant Stadium as early as 2029, Hill previously told the Review-Journal.

“The statement it makes about Las Vegas is equally important,” Hill said. “It says in such a big and focused way that when events come here, they’re elevated. They outperform any other place that you could have an event. We’ve talked about that a lot, but to have an event of this stature come back the next year, because of that, it just says so much about the city and broadcasts that so well for us.”

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.