Rumors Swirl San Diego’s Kaaboo Music Festival is Coming to Las Vegas

By Scott Roeben, on September 26 2017
3 min read 5 comments
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In a major coup for the Las Vegas music scene, word is MGM Resorts has struck a deal for the San Diego-based Kaaboo music festival to come to Las Vegas.

Ever since the disastrous Rock in Rio USA festival in 2015, MGM Resorts has been looking for partners to fill up its under-utilized MGM Resorts Festival Grounds just west of SLS Las Vegas.

We initially reported rumors the festival would move from Del Mar to Vegas, but a more likely scenario would be an offshoot of the main festival confirmed for September 14-16, 2018 at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

A Kaaboo music festival representative says rumors of a festival relocation are premature: “Kaaboo has no plans to relocate from San Diego to Las Vegas. Kaaboo Del Mar is officially scheduled for September 14-16, 2018 at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in Del Mar, California. While Kaaboo is in the early stages of exploring expansion opportunities for additional locations around the U.S., there are no definitive plans for a Kaaboo event in Las Vegas at this time.”

Hey, it’s not the first time we’ve been premature.

Kaaboo Las Vegas
A Millennial tells us an offshoot of Kaaboo in Las Vegas would be “bomb.” Given the event’s name, M Resort should jump all over it. We’ll wait.

What’s Kaaboo? We actually had no idea until approximately 12 minutes ago. Let’s learn more together, shall we?

According to the festival’s founder, entrepreneur Bryan Gordon, “Kaaboo is a fictional world.” Which doesn’t help a whole lot, to be honest.

Kaaboo describes itself as having been “created by music lovers for music lovers.”

But wait, there’s more.

Kaaboo says it’s “an adult escape, uniquely curated to appeal to all five of your senses, with world-class music, hilarious comedy, incredible cuisine, craft libations, inspiring contemporary art and personal indulgences.”

Coincidentally, Personal Indulgences was one of our favorite folks bands in the 1970s.

Find out more about Kaaboo at the official site.

Here’s a little Kaaboo 2016 action, because everything’s better by drone.


The first installment of Kaaboo took place in Sep. 2015 and featured a whopping 100 acts.

The most recent Kaaboo took place in Del Mar, Sep. 14-16, 2017. Kaaboo’s line-up this year was “yuge,” and there’s no reason to think the acts won’t be just as big when Kaaboo comes to Las Vegas. Kaaboo 2017 featured Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pink, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Muse, Weezer, Kesha, Garbage, Jane’s Addiction, Ice Cube, Alanis Morissette and a metric hell-ton of others.

Kaaboo Las Vegas
Anyone else seeing cross-promotion potential with Cirque du Soleil here? Because “Ka.”

If this rumor proves true, a Vegas edition of Kaaboo is going to be a very big deal.

It’s not only great news for music lovers (and comedy lovers and arts lovers), it’s fantastic news for neighboring casinos like Lucky Dragon and SLS Las Vegas and the Stratosphere.

It’s also fantastic news for MGM Resorts, still stinging from the lameness foisted upon it by the organizers of Rock in Rio USA.

As further evidence Kaaboo is in talks for a Vegas iteration, MGM Resorts was a sponsor of this year’s festival in Del Mar, and shared what seemed to be a random Tweet related to the event. Given our scoop, it’s not so random after all. In poker, it’s what’s known as a “tell.” Because Vegas.

Rock in Rio site
Here’s the MGM Resorts Festival Grounds prior to Rock in Rio USA. We’re still trying to get that taste out of your mouth.

We look forward to hearing more about Kaaboo’s plans for Las Vegas.