Mariah Carey Kills It in Vegas: Christmastime Residency Lights Up Dolby Live 2025

Kai Montgomery here, grumbling like a weathered street clock but delivering the tea you actually want. Look, I’ll spare you the melodrama: Mariah Carey is staying put in Las Vegas for a Christmastime residency. Not touring the country this time, not hopping from coast to coast with a suitcase full of holiday glitter, but a ten-night run at Dolby Live at Park MGM that will drop guests into a yuletide glow and a crowd ready to belt out “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Yes, you read that right. The diva of December is planting her snow-globe throne in Sin City, starting November 28 and wrapping December 13, 2025. It’s a bold move that sounds suspiciously like a strategic reset after years of sprawling tours, but hey, the branding is immaculate and the timing is ripe for a Vegas holiday reboot.

Carey herself announced the news via Instagram, sounding upbeat about delivering “Christmastime to the Dolby Live at Park MGM in Vegas.” The setting is a prime match: Dolby Live is a 5,200-seat venue known for its glossy production and nightclub energy, the perfect canvas for a show that fuses glitz with nostalgia. Fans should circle the calendar because this isn’t a multi-week residency on a whim. It’s a curated, limited run that invites a sense of event status rather than a casual, every-other-week performance.

For context, Carey’s recent touring history skews toward long runs and varied set lists. Reviewers and fan-tracking sites note that previous tours often included 20 to 27 songs per show, with favorites spanning her entire catalog. In Brooklyn at Barclays Center last year, she delivered a 24-song set that included perennial Christmas staples like “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” “Sleigh Ride,” “Joy to the World,” and “Here Comes Santa Claus.” There were also non-seasonal crowd-pleasers like “Fantasy” and “We Belong Together” tucked into the night. The 2024 on-tour experience was described by AP News as regal and interactive, with Carey arriving on a snowflake-shaped throne and even inviting her twins Roc and Roe to join in the holiday pageantry. It’s a performance vibe that blends family warmth with the glittery superstardom that only a Christmas queen can pull off.

Ticket logistics are straightforward but price-savvy. Presales and on-sale dates have been teased through ticketing platforms, with Vivid Seats highlighted as a source for secondary-market options. The official on-sale to the general public is slated for Friday, September 20, giving prospective Las Vegas visitors and hardcore stans ample time to plan a Christmastime pilgrimage. The plan, as it stands, is a concentrated burst of holiday magic rather than a scattered tour schedule that dilutes the experience. In other words, Carey is leaning into boutique theater vibes with the bankroll of a Vegas spectacle.

If you’re wondering what else is on the horizon before these December dates, the calendar features Carey performing at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas, September 19-20, as a lead-up event to the residency. The lineup there is stacked with acts like Ed Sheeran, Lil Wayne, LL Cool J, Maroon 5, and Bryan Adams, signaling a high-energy prelude to the Christmastime show. It’s not just a warm-up; it’s a signal that Carey remains a live-wire centerpiece of the pop calendar, able to pivot between festival-scale stages and an intimate Dolby Live room with equal parts spectacle and sentiment.

What does this mean for fans? It means a rare, high-production holiday performance that’s built around a holiday catalog that includes the beloved classics and a few surprises. It’s not simply a repeat of past Christmas tours; it’s a Vegas-ified version—yet we get the unmistakable Mariah formula: lush arrangements, dazzling visual effects, and those signature high notes that still cut through the room, even for a 56-year-old icon who’s built a career on the joy of Christmas.

So, what’s next? The on-sale Friday could unleash a burst of ticket demand, and the show could set a new standard for Christmas residencies in a city already obsessed with spectacle. Keep an eye on whether Carey will weave in special guests, seasonal medleys, or a fresh spin on her catalog to keep the room humming through the December air. And yes, we’ll be watching to see if the snowflake throne makes a return or if Vegas brings an even bigger stage surprise to the Christmastime lineup. What to watch next: will this residency birth a new holiday tradition in Las Vegas, or is it just a glittering stopgap before the next tour detour? Stay tuned, because in Mariah’s world, the season is always in session.

Sources: Celebrity Storm and New York Post; AP News
Attribution: Mariah Carey One Sweet Day Madison Square 1995 — skinnylawyer (CC BY-SA 2.0) (OV)