From 1941 to the 1970s, the El Rancho Vegas occupied most of the land. In 2007, MGM Mirage purchased the El Rancho site from Gordon Gaming for $444 million. In 2014, MGM announced plans to develop the site as an outdoor music venue in partnership with Cirque du Soleil and Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Companies. The project was primarily designed to serve as the site of Rock in Rio USA, a new biennial music festival. The venue was initially referred to as the City of Rock, named after its equivalent in Rio de Janeiro, the site of the original Brazilian version of the Rock in Rio festival. The name was soon changed to the MGM Resorts Festival Grounds. MGM hoped to position the grounds as a site for festivals, concerts, and sporting events as a complement to its other venues in the area. The festival grounds made its debut in May 2015 with the Rock in Rio USA festival. Development costs for the site totaled $20 million. In October 2015, the MGM Resorts branding was dropped and the site was renamed to simply Las Vegas Festival Grounds. The renaming was part of an effort to downplay MGM's role in the venue to improve its marketability for third-party events and to brand the site as being part of Las Vegas's "community". MGM sold the property to Phil Ruffin, along with the neighboring Circus Circus hotel and casino, in 2019.
Events
The Rock in Rio USA music festival was held at the venue in May 2015, headlined by No Doubt, Metallica, Taylor Swift, and Bruno Mars. The festival was intended to be held biennially, but after disappointing ticket sales, plans for future editions of the event were quietly shelved. In April 2016, the Las Vegas Festival Grounds hosted the ACM Party For a Cause Festival on the weekend preceding the Academy of Country Music Awards. In 2018, the iHeartRadio Music Festival relocated its Daytime Village stage to the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, moving from the Las Vegas Village. On November 1–3, 2019, the Festival Grounds held a music festival called Day N Vegas, which featured performances from rap and hip-hop artists. Major headliners included J. Cole, Migos, Tyler, The Creator and Kendrick Lamar. The festival was organized by Goldenvoice, known for organizing the Coachella Festival. The following month, it hosted the inaugural Intersect Music Festival, organized and sponsored by Amazon Web Services. Due to construction of expansions to the Circus Circus property, the 2020 Conexpo-Con/Agg moved its heavy equipment exhibition from the property's "gold lot" to the Festival Grounds.
