Sphere Is an Unnatural Wonder

It's a giant orb in Sin City. Is it also the future of live entertainment?

- By Jen Chaney. Photograph by Kevin Mazur

As the sun rises over a wide patch of Nevada desert, the color of the sky morphs from the deepest pink to a bright crystal blue. Bunches of shrubs and a single, singed white flag atop a tall, skinny pole become more visible as the sun ascends higher and higher. It's a breathtaking moment, one made all the more moving because it's unfolding to the swelling opening notes of "Where the Streets Have No Name," U2's anthem about the vitality of human connection that has been a staple of their concerts for more than 36 years.

The thing is, technically, it’s not entirely real. That striking visual environment is an illusion created by 260 million pixels inside a massive 16K LED screen that wraps around the entire performance space within Sphere, a $2.3 billion 366-foot-tall, 516-foot-wide rotunda adjacent to the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas. (James Dolan, the controversial head of MSG Entertainment and MSG Sports, is responsible for it.) From the outside, Sphere looks like half a planet that accidentally dropped from outer space. Its exterior consists of 580,000 square feet of LED screens that project a rotating series of images— sometimes a big emoji with expressions that range from annoyed to sleepy; a huge semi-disturbing eyeball; or, even more disturbing, an ad for the upcoming third Trolls movie.