As a Mexican brass band played Friday night near the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road, Nicole and Oscar Garcia watched from a distance.
As Oscar Garcia took video of the band and the crowd that had gathered around to dance and enjoy the nighttime spring air on the Strip, his wife explained that she was still leery of COVID-19, the virus that has led to more than 540,000 deaths in the United States during the past year.
“That’s why we’re standing back,” Nicole said. “We want to be careful, but it’s just nice to get out of Los Angeles. We just hope that there won’t be a lot of people exposed where there are crowds.”
Those dancing seemed to not have a care in the world. Those looking on seemed to be reveling in the festive moment, the likes of which the country has seen too few of during the pandemic.
Essentially closed for more than two months last spring, the Strip’s slow crawl back toward normalcy has seemed to advance measurably during the past few weeks.
At times Friday night, sidewalks and escalators along Las Vegas Boulevard were packed shoulder-to-shoulder. At around 10:30 p.m., the line at La Salsa Margareta along the Showcase Mall was about 30 deep.
Two women staying at Bally’s from Boston said they were making their first trip to Las Vegas. They said they felt comfortable traveling across the country because both have been fully vaccinated.
Most people walking outside wore masks. As vehicles passed by along Las Vegas Boulevard near the MGM Grand, a woman shouted gleefully from a vehicle to nobody in particular.
Seconds later, a pink Volkswagen fan blasted MC Hammer’s hip hop classic “U Can’t Touch This” from an after-factory sound system.
Casinos, restaurants and nightlife spots on Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas were also busy over the weekend, aided in part by basketball fans interested in the opening weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament.
It was first weekend following the relaxing of casino capacity restrictions, going from 35% capacity to 50% on March 15.
Other than guests wearing facemasks, the seen in many places over the weekend resembled a pre-pandemic version of the city, long known for its crowds and tourist appeal.
With more and more people being vaccinated against the virus every day — more than 120 million nationally have already received a vaccination — it only stands to reason that the masses will continue to be more comfortable with travel.
Maximum comfort levels can’t come soon enough for Las Vegas and its tourism-based economy. In 2019, over 42 million people visited the city, though that figure dropped by more than 50% last year due to the pandemic.
Callie Driehorst, a spokeswoman for MGM Resorts International, said the company, which operates nine Strip casino resorts, is optimistic about the coming months.
“We are optimistic that the increase demand we’ve seen recently will continue to grow as vaccination rates increase and the economy continues to recover,” Driehorst said. “As we’re seeing with March Madness, there is a pent-up enthusiasm and interest, and we’re looking forward to continuing to build on that progress.”
Along the Strip on Friday, basketball fans were easy to spot as they sported shirts and hats bearing their favorite school’s names and monikers — LSU, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio State, Tennessee, West Virginia and Syracuse, among others, were represented.
Since the popular basketball tournament was canceled last year because of the pandemic, Las Vegas seems to be welcoming the event — one of the most popular on the American sporting calendar — back with open arms.
In fact, MGM CEO Bill Hornbuckle recently said in a social media post that this year’s tournament is “poised to be among the most significant events to date in Las Vegas’s economy recovery.”
It wasn’t only the Strip and downtown that were busy over the weekend. At out-of-towner at the Orleans said he stayed up until 7 a.m. Friday morning to reserve a table there to watch the games.
At the Westgate Las Vegas, spokesman Gordon Prouty said the weekend was sure to be the strongest for the resort since it reopened in June following the state-mandated casino shutdown period.
“We’ve been really pleased,” Prouty said. “Reserved seating for the games in the SuperBook, Hoops Central in the International Theater and the Hoops Central Ballroom viewing party sold out for the first two days (of the tournament). Given what we’ve all been through for the last year, we are feeling very optimistic about business moving forward.”
Not everyone, however, was in town over the weekend to watch and place bets on basketball games.
Basketball wasn’t in Alyssa Ramsey’s thought process at all just after dark on Saturday as she stood near the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign at the south end of the Strip near Mandalay Bay.
Alyssa, from the Dallas area, had just finished getting married to Scott Ramsey in a short ceremony near the sign.
Wearing a rented white wedding dress, Alyssa said the couple made plans for a Vegas wedding a couple of weeks ago. She said they weren’t worried at all about traveling from Texas to Nevada.
“It seemed like a fun thing to do,” she said. “It’s been great. It feels like people are going out again.”