Clark County Puts $10 Million Toward Insomniac's Renovation of the Historic Sahara Event Center

LAS VEGAS

Clark County has earmarked $10 million to help Insomniac, the promoter behind the Electric Daisy Carnival, renovate the former Sahara Event Center just east of the Las Vegas Strip, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, whose reporting Casino.org summarized. Casino.org reported that the venue, at 800 Liberace Avenue in the Commercial Center, is described as the most historically significant surviving rock music landmark in Las Vegas.

The money does not stand alone. Casino.org reported that Insomniac pledges to invest $20 million of its own toward the overhaul, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Clark County's Redevelopment Agency set aside the county funds as part of a broader mission to breathe new life into the surrounding Commercial Center. That pairing matters for readers trying to understand what was actually decided this week: the county is putting public redevelopment money behind a private purchase and rehabilitation, and the promoter is expected to put in twice as much of its own money to finish the job.

Commissioner Tick Segerblom told FOX5 Vegas, as Casino.org reported: “It's going to enable Insomniac to complete their purchase and then invest $20 million to renovate it and rehab it, make it a current event center.” Segerblom told FOX5 Vegas, in the same account Casino.org reported: “It's going to be very exciting.” Those two sentences, plain as they sound, contain the whole sequence county leaders are counting on — first the purchase is completed, then the renovation money follows, and only then does a long-quiet room east of the Strip return as a working, current event center.

A room that was an ice rink when the legends played it

To understand why county leaders and music historians care about this particular building, you have to go back to when it was not an event center at all. Casino.org reported that the building at 800 Liberace Avenue, formerly East Karen Avenue, was built in the 1960s as an ice rink — the Ice Palace — built to showcase the Ice Capades and a semi-pro hockey team called the Las Vegas Gamblers. Casino.org reported that for touring rock acts with sizable followings who were unwanted by casino showrooms or by the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Ice Palace was, in effect, the only show in town.

The list of names attached to that rink is the reason the address carries weight far beyond its size. Casino.org reported that, as the Ice Palace, the venue hosted legendary 1960s and 1970s rock and reggae acts including Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin and the Grateful Dead. Casino.org reported that promoters converted the rink into a concert hall by placing plywood over the ice, then squeezing as many young fans inside as the fire code permitted. Casino.org reported that Bob Marley and the Wailers performed there on October 21, 1973, as a surprise opening act on a Sly & The Family Stone bill, in what Casino.org described as Marley's only Las Vegas concert. Casino.org also reported that other acts who made their Las Vegas debuts at the Ice Palace included Buffalo Springfield, Yes, the Doors, Steely Dan and Carlos Santana, whose band opened for the Grateful Dead on March 29, 1969.

That history is not decoration on this story. It is the argument for spending public money on the building at all. A generic warehouse east of the Strip would not draw a $10 million redevelopment commitment. A surviving room where Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead and Bob Marley actually played — in a city that has demolished much of its own entertainment history — is a different kind of asset, and it is the asset Clark County says it is trying to bring back to life.

From ice to roller skates to an event center gone quiet

The building did not stay a concert hall. Casino.org reported that, as the decades passed and casinos became more receptive to booking rock acts, the building traded its ice rink for roller skates during its era as Playland Skateland, and eventually evolved into the Sahara Event Center and roller hockey rink. Casino.org reported that by September 2026, Insomniac had leased and temporarily closed the space.

That lease, and the temporary closure, are the bridge between the building's past and the county's present decision. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that the Redevelopment Agency set aside the funds toward a massive overhaul of the venue. Casino.org reported that while the county's $10 million has been officially set aside, the full transfer of funds remains contingent on a finalized agreement between the county and the promoter. Readers should hold both halves of that sentence at once: the commitment is real, and the paperwork that releases the money is still the step that makes it spendable.

Why Insomniac, and why Las Vegas keeps deepening the tie

This venture deepens a relationship that has been building for a decade and a half. Casino.org reported that ever since Insomniac's flagship Electric Daisy Carnival relocated from Southern California in 2011, the promoter has fostered ties with local resorts and mega-clubs, turning the days preceding the festival into EDC Week, with high-profile takeovers at venues such as Hakkasan, Omnia at Caesars Palace and the Marquee Nightclub. EDM Identity reported the same history, noting that Electric Daisy Carnival's flagship festival relocated from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in 2011 and that the days leading up to the festival are now known as EDC Week.

EDM.com reported that the Clark County Commission voted to set aside the money for a rebuild of the Sahara Event Center and that the vote does not send cash to Insomniac immediately, but reserves the funding until the company and the county's Redevelopment Agency reach a formal agreement. EDM.com also reported that Commissioner Tick Segerblom said Insomniac plans to contribute an additional $20 million of its own funds toward the renovation. Put the accounts together and a consistent picture emerges from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, FOX5 Vegas, Casino.org, EDM Identity and EDM.com: a unanimous-feeling county commitment, a much larger private match, and a formal agreement still to come.

For the Commercial Center neighborhood, the stakes are practical as well as cultural. The district sits minutes from the Strip and the Las Vegas Convention Center, yet it has spent years waiting for the kind of anchor investment that gives smaller shops and restaurants a reason to believe foot traffic will follow. A renovated, actively programmed event center — run by a promoter that already brings one of the largest festival audiences in the world to Las Vegas every year — is exactly that kind of anchor, if the purchase closes and the rehabilitation actually happens on the scale described.

What happens next

The next step is not a ribbon-cutting. It is the formal agreement between Insomniac and Clark County's Redevelopment Agency that, as Casino.org reported, will govern the transfer of the $10 million, and the completion of the purchase that Segerblom told FOX5 Vegas the funding is meant to enable. Until those documents are signed, the story is a commitment — a large, public, on-the-record commitment, but a commitment rather than a construction schedule.

Previously will follow the agreement, the purchase closing and the first announced programming for the renovated room. Readers catching up on the wider Southwest picture this week can also read our coverage of Los Angeles facing its wettest October since 2009 and browse the latest reporting on the Previously news front. For a building that once put plywood over ice so the Grateful Dead could play Las Vegas, a $30 million combined path back to live music is, at minimum, the most interesting second act any room in this city has been offered in years.