Blog/The Las Vegas sphere dazzles on opening
4th October 2023
Las Vegas has long been considered the entertainment capital of the world, hosting heavyweight world championship title fights, residencies from one pop world superstar after the next, and a seemingly never ending supply of innovative no-expense spared hotel concepts that make hotels in other cities seem boring.
Planning and construction here is of course made easier without much historical infrastructure to consider, with Las Vegas essentially being little more than a backwater prior to the building of the Hoover dam in the 1930s that brought water to the Nevada desert.
Hotels based on Paris, Venice and ancient Egypt bring a fun, extravagant appeal to the city, making it a kind of ‘Disneyland for adults’, who visit the Nevada town in their millions every year.
Not only are they attracted by the entertainment and the excess and the exuberance of the whole town, but they also come for its many casinos, the rich profits from which are used to continually develop and expand the desert resort, helping it grow around 20% in the last decade.
However, because Las Vegas is developing so rapidly, what seemed state-of-the-art ten years ago, now feels a bit old hat. While many hotels in Europe can boast a rich history going back centuries, the Las Vegas Hilton where Elvis famously played in the 1970s, for example, built a mere fifty years ago feels fit for demolition now compared to the world class venues that surround it.
So with this constant pushing of the entertainment envelope we shouldn’t really be too surprised when something comes along that really takes your breath away. And the newly-opened Sphere at the Venetian does just that.
The Sphere is a 112 metre high dome, that houses an music and entertainment centre, with a capacity of just over 18,000. While it is the largest spherical building in the world, what makes it truly spectacular are the 110,000 square metres of LEDs that cover the building’s inner and outer surfaces.
This allows the venue to essentially wrap the dome in visuals of its choosing, from a blinking eye, to a basketball to the surface of Mars. And it can all be animated.
Inside, the 4d visuals that can support a gig are simply mindblowing, and can transport its guests anywhere instantly, whether it be inside or out, day or night, earthly or, well, whatever the opposite of earthly is!
And the scope for creativity is limitless!
Ageing Irish rockers U2 opened The Sphere with a gig on the 23rd September 2024, and the footage shared online is like no other music concert I’ve ever seen, taking ‘immersive’ to the next level.
However, with tickets for U2’s run of gigs averaging at $300 to $400, it’s certainly not cheap, and, at least while it’s still a novelty, is reserved for either a super-fan, the super-wealthy, or a holiday-maker who’s prepared to worry about his or her credit card bill when they get home.
Check this out:
A game changer.