Hard Rock Stadium
The Formula 1 Grand Prix at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami is entering its fifth race this year, and we’re looking back to see how the music and entertainment scene at the F1 Miami GP has evolved over the years.
This year, F1 Miami’s Hard Rock Beach club features an eclectic musical lineup featuring Zedd, Nelly, Marshmello, DJ Diesel, and many more big names.
Ahead of Miami Race Week, we sat down with Keith Sheldon, Hard Rock’s President of Entertainment & Brand Management, to talk about the evolution of entertainment at the F1 Miami GP.
Hey Keith, we’re coming up on the fifth year of the F1 Miami GP. How has the entertainment side of the race evolved from when you guys started to where you are now?
Keith Sheldon: I think in year one, we were sort of building something from scratch, and we were figuring it out in real time as we were going. The vision was always to program a diversity of talent, A-listers, dance music, and all different genres to bring energy to the Miami Grand Prix. And I think that vision has become a reality, and now people are expecting more and more. So the execution gets more difficult, but we’re getting sharper every year. I think that it’s not just about programming the Beach Club anymore. It’s also about thinking about how we’re curating an entire week across all of the Hard Rock assets. So we have these amazing performances at Beach Club, at the Track. Then we bring it back to Hard Rock Live at some of the Hard Rock Hollywood. We have the Guitar Hotel Pool Stage taking place again this year on Saturday night. So we’re thinking about it as a full ecosystem of entertainment programming.
What’s something you wish you had known in year one, that you know now after several years working F1 races?
The races themselves are so highly curated, and it’s about the racing. So as we’ve learned more about the sport, the integrations, the moments, we’ve thought more intentionally about how we’re programming each of those race moments and making sure that we have the right acts on at the right times on the right days. And again, I think this year’s lineup is bigger than it’s ever been. We have A-listers performing every single day, and we’re curating those moments at the track to make sure that the energy is there from minute one of the race to right after the race closes with a grand finale performance as well.
Tell me about this year’s Hard Rock Beach Club lineup, which features musical acts from several different genres.?
All the F1 races, Miami in particular, are drawing fans from all over the globe, and we don’t all listen to the same music, but we love the energy that the music brings to the track. So as we think about our programming at the Beach Club, we have Nelly and Zedd on Friday. We have Marshmello and Diesel on Saturday. We have Kane Brown now closing out the race on Sunday. So you have hip-hop, dance music, and country all on the same stage over the same weekend. And taking it again back to Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, you are also programming Guns N’ Roses on Thursday night, and you have Kane with Marshmello and Nelly on Friday night, and you have Loud Luxury and Diesel for the SI Circuit Series pool party on Saturday. So we have this confluence of all different genres of music, which is really representative of how we want to portray our brand. It’s something for everybody. So it’s rock, it’s country, it’s hip-hop, it’s EDM. Across multiple venues, across multiple days. And that’s by design. It’s totally intentional and it’s the direction that the Hard Rock brand is going. And it fits perfectly into the energy that F1 fans are looking for on race weekend.
Has it gotten easier to book acts for the F1 GP, now that it’s a known commodity here in the US?
Five years ago, music at an F1 race was a bit of a novelty, and now it’s become omnipresent at all the F1 races. It’s an expectation that fans have, and not just any music. Fans want headliners, they want the production, they want this festival-like experience wrapped around the race. And I think that as more and more races are interested in programming music, it makes a programming conversation a little bit more challenging because you’re not only competing for moments in Miami, you’re competing for moments at tracks all around the globe throughout the F1 circuit. But in the same sense, I think that F1 is more on the conscientiousness of all these major headliners, especially ones that have gotten into the sport over the last 5, 6 years. Whether that’s through the Netflix series, whether that’s through F1: The Movie, or just general fandom. But that’s opened the door to that much more opportunity with artists. So double-edged sword.
How do you see the entertainment at the F1 Miami GP evolving in the next five years?
It’s always an evolution. So we’re constantly trying to raise the bar. We are having conversations with Mr. Ross, Tom Garfinkel, and Kathy Nowak from the F1 Miami Grand Prix team about what that evolution is, whether it’s a structural evolution from the footprint of Hard Rock Beach Club to the types of talent, to the minutes and rotations and day parts that those artists are getting at the track. The evolution continues. As you can see this year, the energy that we’re bringing, the diversity of content, and the headliner style artists have never been bigger. And over the course of the next few years, we’ll look to replicate that and then some.