The Life Is Beautiful festival has transformed Las Vegas. Full stop. The continuing influence of the “music, culinary, art and learning festival” founded by entrepreneur and music fan Rehan Choudhry in October 2013 can be easily measured, in some cases even with the naked eye.

The most immediate proof is Downtown, on the streets and alleys that comprise the festival footprint. In October 2013, the Fremont East Entertainment District was still only partially formed, with a fewindicators of the junior Bourbon Street it would someday become. But there were plenty of outliers, too. The ground floor of Michael and Jennifer Cornthwaite’s Emergency Arts complex contained galleries and a coffeehouse; today, it’s an upscale burger bar.

The Tony Hsieh-backed Downtown Project gamely attempted to introduce an educational element to Fremont with a theater/newsstand and a “Learning Village”; today the former is a nightclub, the latter an empty lot. And the festival itself, in its early running, contained elements that are now somewhat diminished—most notably its “learning” element, which has been largely replaced with comedy.

But the walls of Fremont, freshly painted with murals for LIB’s first year and for every festival since, remain vibrant and alive. It’s tough to overstate how different Fremont East looked and felt before the likes of Criola, D-Face, Bicicleta Sem Freio, Keya Tama and Shepard Fairey covered Downtown’s giant, featureless walls with their joyous and colorful art. It’s a tradition that continues today, as a set of new murals, co-curated once again by the JustKidscreative house and several talented locals, replaces the old.

Life Is Beautiful’s commitment to urban art has inspired developers and property owners across the Valley to reconsider public art, says prolific Vegas muralist Jerry Misko. He has recently painted murals on brand new buildings in Paradise, in North Las Vegas and on the west side—and without LIB’s example, he says, they might not have been commissioned.

“I think [LIB’s mural program] has given …. not permission [per se], but confidence, or validation, to large corporations. They could see that mural art could work for them,” he says. “In a way, it was kind of a market test to see if mural art was something people liked. And they do.”

The festival has also encouraged Vegas’ appetite for, well, food. A robust culinary program has been part of LIB from the beginning, bringing the Valley’s biggest kitchen stars, along with notable visiting chefs, out of their restaurants and food trucks to give festival crowds a taste of something great. For locals, it’s a way to try out restaurants they haven’t yet visited; for visitors, it’s proof that Vegas’ culinary scene has evolved and expanded far beyond the Strip.

Chef Gina Marinelli, executive partner at beloved Summerlin trattoria La Strega, has cooked for several past LIBs and is doing it again this year, for the same reason artists paint those murals—so that even more people can experience something good.

“Growing up I went to music festivals all the time, and I would eat, like, hot dogs,” she says, laughing. “It’s really cool having this platform, where attendees can enjoy what these really talented chefs can do.”

And it probably goes without saying that Life Is Beautiful has given a big boost to Vegas’ touring music scene. (It has also boosted our local music scene; local bands have been a part of LIB from year one.) Vegas hosted numerous music festivals before LIB, some of those have vanished (we hardly knew ye, Vegoose) while others have continued and become influential events in themselves (Punk Rock Bowling and Electric Daisy Carnival come readily to mind). But LIB has proven time and again to be both a tastemaker and a barometer of big things to come. We’ve seen the likes of SZA, Haim and Lizzo performing on LIB’s secondary stages, just before they broke big.

Local concert promoter Patrick “Pulsar” Trout has been a frequent LIB fixture, both in his professional capacity (one of the bands he works with, Decaying Tigers, plays the Rising Stars stage on September 17), and as a fan (“Janelle Monáe’s set [in 2013] completely blew me the f*ck away,” he says). To his mind, LIB has helped to change the game in Vegas—not just for clubs and concertgoers, but for other festivals, too.

“[LIB] is one of the festivals in the last decade, along with Punk Rock Bowling and Psycho Las Vegas, where the focus seems to be on making it a destination event,” he says. “So, while you might be able to see some of the acts that are on the bill at Life Is Beautiful at Brooklyn Bowl or the Cosmo[politan], being able to see all those acts at that level—in one setting—is great.

“There’s a residual effect when you discover an act at a festival, and then, several months or a year down the line that act comes back to your town but in an intimate setting,” he says. “It makes it easier [than] trying to cold sell someone on the idea of seeing a band that you would probably sell out a room in LA or Phoenix.”

Perhaps the biggest impact Life Is Beautiful has made might be the least obvious—providing an overture to Las Vegas’ autumn months, when the weather cools enough to allow for a veritable flood of cultural events: concerts, fairs, food and drink festivals, parades. After LIB weekend, the city opens like a book, and you find yourself outside enjoying events you couldn’t have imagined a month before in the summer heat. Some of these cultural events might feel like LIB weekend—and others, perhaps, are happening only because some folks once fatefully decided to throw a big party in the heart of Las Vegas.

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL September 16-18. 2 p.m.-1 a.m., $180/day, $380/fest, Downtown Las Vegas, lifeisbeautiful.com.

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