It is August and in Reno that means Hot August Nights (HAN). Reno’s annual car and music event began August 1 and runs through August 10 this year, the 39th HAN. Up to 6,000 participants with their cars are expected, and as many as 500,000 spectators over the ten days.
In August 1986, Reno was in its heyday as a casino destination. Except for Las Vegas and Atlantic City, Reno casinos had no competition. Six million people a year visited the city, gambled in the casinos, ate in the restaurants, and stayed in the hotels. But summer was always a slow season for the gaming industry in northern Nevada. Casino business peaked in May, then slowed until the end of September, hitting another peak in October. From mid-November through February, the gambling business in Reno slowed again.
The challenge for the city and individual casinos was to find events that brought people to town during the off seasons. Las Vegas faced the same seasonality. Over the years, Vegas developed unique solutions. Celebrity entertainers were big enough to draw tourists in any season and in 1985, Las Vegas discovered the National Finals Rodeo (NFR). Like HAN, the NFR is still a mainstay of the city’s special events. Of course, Las Vegas has grown a great deal since then and has many more venues and events that fill the city’s 150,000 hotel rooms. Reno has always been a horse of a different color and nothing in the north — not the room count, special events, or entertainment — comes up to level of things in the south.
Still, Reno has its own rodeo, popularly called “The Wildest, Richest Rodeo in the West.” This was its 106th year and the Reno Rodeo drew about 140,000 people, contributing $42 million to the local economy. In 1986, the rodeo was not that big, but it was important to the economy. Reno needed more summer events to help ease the pain of the slow summer months. Up stepped Willie Davidson with a celebration of the 1950s.
The name Hot August Nights came from a song by Neil Diamond. It fit; Reno is hot in August. The event began as a 1950s and ‘60s music festival. The Righteous Brothers, Wolfman Jack, and Jan & Dean performed the first year; cars followed naturally. The 1950s gave birth to rock and roll and a car culture. In post-war America, cars were a key ingredient in life. You tricked out your ride and paraded up and down the streets of your hometown, listening to rock and roll, smoking cigarettes, and chatting with members of the opposite sex. The nation outgrew that time. We got married, had children, bought houses and family cars, had careers, and watched the evening news on television.
Eventually, we retired with the time and money to spend on entertainment and rock and roll and those classic cars still held a place in our hearts. Willie Davidson understood that better than anyone I ever met. Davidson was absolutely certain that an event based on the nostalgia for those times would be a success. Nearly 40 years later, it is clear that Willie was right. Willie was a great marketing guy, but unfortunately, not a great money manager. Hot August Nights was a huge success for the area. Every August hundreds of thousands of people flocked to Reno to see the cars and listen to the music of their youth; it was great for the economy and the gaming industry. But Hot August Nights itself was not always a financial success. In time, other people took over. Willie went on to create other events, but nothing quite as memorable or lasting as Hot August Nights. Sadly, he died in 2013.
Hot August Nights filled a hole in the calendar in Reno, giving casinos a needed boost. But it couldn’t hold back the tide of events that eventually decimated the casino industry in Reno. The gaming world began a dramatic change in the 1990s when commercial casinos and Indian gaming exploded nationally. Reno was left in the backwaters; the majority of the casinos operating in 1986 have closed and followed the dodo bird down the road to extinction. But those casinos that have survived still prize Hot August Nights.
In 2025, Hot August Nights will be bigger and better. The Peppermill, Atlantis, Nugget, J Resort, Grand Sierra, and the University of Nevada will be hosting car and music events. The 6,000 car owners and 500,000 spectators are expected to have a $150 million impact on the local economy. HAN is as important to Reno in 2025 as it was in 1986. Reno thanks you, Willie Davidson; that was one hell of an idea. But Reno needs a new idea, one for the 21st century and a younger demographic. The Boomers are aging out and their children might still have a slight interest in cars and music from the 1950s. But their grandchildren have no interest in them. Are any Willie Davidsons out there with a new idea?
