\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n
\n\tAnd it very well might be. As the sands of the concert business shift, Sphere\u2019s model \u2014 prioritizing cutting-edge production, embracing an unorthodox residency model and rounding out its calendar with high-margin programming produced itself \u2014 provides intriguing paths forward for major touring artists and the arenas and stadiums they play.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut as Sphere prepares to open its doors, significant questions remain about who will play the venue next, how it will continue to draw fans (and enough of them) in the coming years and what it needs to do to become \u2014 and remain \u2014 financially viable. And with its $2.3 billion price tag, nearly double the $1.2 billion initially estimated when the project was announced in 2018, the legacy of the figure behind the project, James Dolan, executive chairman and CEO of both Sphere Entertainment and the closely related Madison Square Garden Entertainment, feels inextricably linked to Sphere\u2019s success. (Dolan declined an interview for this story.)<\/p>\n
\n\tFor now, though, existential questions about Sphere will have to wait. There\u2019s a U2 residency to launch \u2014 no small feat \u2014 and, a week after that, the premiere of Postcard From Earth<\/em>, the Darren Aronofsky-directed nature film that Sphere will screen from one to four times daily on days U2 doesn\u2019t play and that promises to harness even more of the venue\u2019s considerable stable of technological bells and whistles (while also, hopefully, quickly becoming a reliable revenue driver).<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cThis is essentially a new medium, which we call \u2018experiential,\u2019 \u201d Dolan said on an August earnings call. \u201cSphere is a brand-new, never-before-seen medium \u2014 and we believe it will take the world by storm.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tA month before Sphere\u2019s scheduled opening, David Dibble, CEO of the Sphere Entertainment subsidiary MSG Ventures, is in a jovial mood, sitting on Zoom before a background rendering of the cosmos, the starship Enterprise<\/em> soaring through space.<\/p>\n\n\tHe drops references to everything from the ancient Greeks to the Gutenberg press to scenes from Jaws<\/em> and Animal House<\/em> \u2014 and links all these things to Sphere. The project has dominated Dibble\u2019s life since Dolan first broached the concept to him in his office one evening in late 2015, shortly after the sale of longtime Dolan family asset Cablevision was finalized for $17 billion.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cHe leaned back, looked out the window,\u201d recalls Dibble, who was Cablevision\u2019s chief technology officer before joining MSG after the former\u2019s sale. \u201cHe says, \u2018You know, Dibble, let\u2019s reinvent the live-entertainment industry.\u2019 Those were his exact words. And I said, \u2018Oh, OK. Well, thinking small, are we?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tFor \u201cat least three hours,\u201d the two men \u201cbrainstormed and argued and laughed.\u201d Dolan was resolute that his new venue should have an iconic shape. After ruling out a pyramid or a cube, he grabbed Dibble\u2019s pad of graph paper, scribbling a circle and a stick figure, and holding it up. \u201cI got it,\u201d he told Dibble. \u201cMSG Globe.\u201d Dibble nixed the name; Dolan asked him why.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI said, \u2018Shakespeare\u2019s got \u2018Globe,\u2019 man, come on. You\u2019re good, Dolan, but you\u2019re not going to compete with Shakespeare.\u2019\u201d Dolan paused and recast his concept: MSG Sphere.<\/p>\n
\n\tAccording to Sphere executive vp\/COO Rich Claffey, who oversaw venue management for MSG Entertainment\u2019s full portfolio before assuming his current role, Dolan began discussing Sphere in specific terms around 2015 \u2014 but had interest in a venue that would address similar concerns even earlier.<\/p>\n
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A cross-section rendering of Sphere.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\u201cWe would always talk about how we could make multiple events in a day happen without having huge changeovers and things of that nature,\u201d says Claffey, who joined the MSG family as a stagehand at its flagship arena in 1983. \u201cTen years ago, we were trying to figure out the best way where we could do major productions, all in the same day, and [what it would look like] if we ever built a building.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen Dolan conceived Sphere, he didn\u2019t have Vegas specifically in mind and asked his team to prepare a list of candidate locations, according to Dibble. But around this time, he explains, MSG connected with Sheldon Adelson and Rob Goldstein of the Las Vegas Sands, then still owner of The Venetian, who found the idea compelling and \u201cin their view, fit the direction that Las Vegas was going\u201d \u2014 away from gaming and toward entertainment.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cLive entertainment defines this town, more so than gaming,\u201d says Kate Wik, chief marketing officer for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the government agency tasked with marketing and promoting southern Nevada. \u201cIt has been over a decade that nongaming revenues exceed that of gaming revenues. We are an entertainment destination.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSands and MSG inked a ground-lease agreement for a plot directly behind The Venetian, and the project was announced in February 2018. \u201cWe had no idea how we were going to do this. I mean, none,\u201d Dibble says with a palpable sense of amazement that Sphere was ultimately built. \u201cAll we knew was what we were going to call it and what the shape was going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tPopulous \u2014 the acclaimed architectural design firm behind facilities including Seattle\u2019s Climate Pledge Arena and Milwaukee\u2019s Fiserv Forum \u2014 was attached from the jump, with AECOM added as general contractor in 2019, when construction began; AECOM estimated the venue would cost $1.7 billion. But with the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation and attendant supply chain problems, the project was soon marked by delays and other issues. In late 2020, MSG Entertainment relieved AECOM of its role and took construction in-house. (AECOM remained involved with the project in a support role under a new services agreement.) Some key executives did not see the project through, including Jayne McGivern, MSG Entertainment president of development and construction, and Lucas Watson, MSG Sphere president, who parted ways with the company in 2021 and February 2023, respectively.<\/p>\n
\n\tThere was \u201ca lot of skepticism around this project over the years it was constructed,\u201d says Paul Golding, an equity research analyst at Macquarie Group who tracks several companies across the live sector, including MSG Entertainment and Sphere Entertainment. And some of that skepticism extended beyond challenges in conventional construction to the novelty of the tech that would make the venue much more than just another impressive Vegas edifice. \u201cThere was, throughout the construction process \u2014 and even starting from the early days \u2014 some concern [among the investment community] as to whether some of these characteristics or features would be feasible, and if so, at what cost,\u201d Golding adds.<\/p>\n
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The Exosphere.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\tThe team wanted best-in-class audio and visual capabilities \u2014 some of which didn\u2019t even exist yet at the project\u2019s inception. For the former, it partnered with Holoplot, a Berlin-based audio startup, to design Sphere Immersive Sound, which uses the German company\u2019s patented 3D Audio-Beamforming technology to ensure that listeners anywhere in the venue hear identical mixes at identical volumes; algorithmic machine learning and environmental data collected in real time by sensors throughout Sphere further refine and standardize the sound attendees hear regardless of where they\u2019re seated. And to ideate the venue\u2019s LED display and 4D technologies, Sphere Studios, a Burbank, Calif.-based interdisciplinary team spanning creative, production, technology and software pros, launched to serve as Sphere\u2019s in-house creative and production unit. Its proudest accomplishment to date is Big Sky, an innovative high-resolution camera system that far outpaces current industry standards and can produce content suited for the venue\u2019s massive screen.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd as much interest as Sphere\u2019s technology has generated, its business model is also challenging conventional wisdom about how buildings should be operated, particularly at the arena level. Traditionally, Dolan explained on the August earnings call, \u201cif you have a team, they\u2019re the first tenants in, but that generally only occupies 40 to 50 nights a year, and the rest of the time you\u2019re renting out and you have a limited revenue stream.\u201d Sphere, by contrast, \u201cwill be busy theoretically 365 days a year, because when we\u2019re not bringing in someone like a U2, etc., we\u2019re running our own content, and that business is a high-margin business.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBy all appearances, U2 isn\u2019t playing Sphere because it\u2019s forsaking the road or has a particular affinity for Vegas. Rather, from the multimedia-rich 1992-93 Zoo TV Tour promoting Achtung Baby<\/em> and Zooropa<\/em> to the 2009-11 U2 360\u00b0 Tour, with \u201cThe Claw\u201d \u2014 its striking, four-legged stage structure plopped on stadium floors around the world \u2014 to even Bono and The Edge\u2019s wild, ill-fated Broadway experiment with Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark<\/em>, the band has pushed the boundaries of live entertainment for more than three decades. Its Sphere show, described by a press release as \u201ca futuristic Achtung Baby<\/em> adventure in a unique desert landscape,\u201d is another step in that progression. (U2, creative directors Es Devlin and Willie Williams, and other members of its creative and production teams were unavailable to participate in this story; manager Irving Azoff declined to comment and a representative for longtime Live Nation promoter Arthur Fogel did not respond to requests for comment.)<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cU2 is on record publicly saying they wouldn\u2019t have played Vegas if it weren\u2019t for the Sphere,\u201d Dibble says. \u201cI think that that thesis is probably going to lather, rinse, repeat across a pretty broad spectrum of entertainers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tGiven U2\u2019s success selling tickets at Sphere so far \u2014 as its residency launches, multiple dates are sold out and several others have extremely limited inventory \u2014 and the substantial creative investment made by it and the venue for U2:UV<\/em>, Sphere could take a page out of the book of other popular Vegas residencies and extend the band\u2019s run. After all, U2 announced only five dates initially, adding 20 more in three waves to meet demand. \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure we could have kept going,\u201d says Josephine Vaccarello, executive vp, live at MSG Entertainment, who oversees booking for all venues across the company\u2019s portfolio and added Sphere to her purview in January. Might that happen? \u201cTBD. I think we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The Exosphere.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\tBut who will play Sphere following the famed Irish rockers? The venue doesn\u2019t have any announced bookings after U2 on Dec. 16 \u2014 and its team has been mum about what its calendar will look like in 2024 and beyond. \u201cWe expect to announce additional residencies shortly, which are slated to take place later this fiscal year,\u201d Dolan said on August\u2019s earnings call, citing a \u201creal robust interest from the artist community.\u201d But, he noted, \u201cwe expect maybe not as high profile as U2, but close, because those are the kinds of artists that have been coming to talk to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThere are tons of conversations happening right now,\u201d Vaccarello says with excitement. \u201cIt\u2019s literally \u2014 it\u2019s every genre.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tStill, in a report published after August\u2019s earnings call, Macquarie expressed concern about the lack of additional concert announcements and said Dolan\u2019s warning of future bookings being potentially lower profile than U2 \u201csoftens our view on venue rental revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIn Claffey\u2019s estimation, artists \u201cprobably would have to be able to do six to eight shows to be viable, just to make it worth their while and our while.\u201d And though Vaccarello reiterates that Sphere\u2019s doors are open to one-off touring acts, she\u2019s skeptical that such plays are the best fit for them. \u201cWith the technology that exists within Sphere, it doesn\u2019t make sense to come into Sphere if you\u2019re not going to use the media plane [Sphere\u2019s term for its LED screen] and let it do all the things that it can do,\u201d she says. \u201cOtherwise, you would just do your show in an arena.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tSin City already has multiple such venues, including the relatively new T-Mobile Arena, the MGM Grand Garden Arena and an additional, in-the-works facility being plotted by Oak View Group, not to mention a just-approved baseball stadium and the recently opened Allegiant Stadium.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThere is a lot of competition, so if you\u2019re really just doing a one-off [in Vegas], I could see why you would just go to one of those other venues,\u201d says Jarred Arfa, executive vp\/head of global music at the newly formed agency Independent Artist Group. At IAG, Arfa represents a roster that includes Metallica, Neil Young, Def Leppard, The Strokes and Billy Joel \u2014 the lattermost will notably conclude his monthly MSG residency after a decade in July 2024 \u2014 and he says several clients have expressed interest in playing Sphere. \u201cWhat I\u2019m curious to see is, does the Sphere help an artist sell tickets?\u201d he wonders. \u201cIf we have an artist who\u2019s maybe worth one or two arena plays in Vegas, does the Sphere make it seven?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBoth Sphere executives and Arfa offer a similar refrain: that the venue\u2019s technology, and its capacity to allow artists to create unique shows that can\u2019t play anywhere else, heavily incentivizes extended runs. And while Sphere\u2019s decision to lean into residencies isn\u2019t particularly innovative, the scale at which it plans to do so is. Massive stars with Vegas residencies like Adele and Usher play to far smaller rooms (the 4,300-capacity Colosseum at Caesars Palace and the 5,200-capacity Dolby Live at Park MGM, respectively) than Sphere. As Arfa says: \u201cIt\u2019s weird, because it\u2019s an arena size, but it\u2019s the residency model.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cIf a roller coaster only went up, that\u2019s what it\u2019s like,\u201d says Guy Barnett, Sphere Entertainment senior vp, brand strategy and creative development, 10 days before U2 debuts at the venue. \u201cYou don\u2019t often get the chance to launch a brand that dabbles with so many entertaining things, from robots to giant screens to Aronofsky.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBarnett helped Dolan develop an early \u201cpitch reel\u201d for Sphere when Dolan was developing the concept in 2016 and returned to the project in early 2023 to guide the venue as it established its identity. While concerts are an important component of Sphere\u2019s business model, they\u2019re far from its only revenue stream \u2014 and possibly not its most critical one. Sphere\u2019s overall commercial success relies on how well it can establish itself as more than just a place for music, but as \u201ca fusion of science and art, and what the outcome of those two things are,\u201d Barnett says. \u201cIt has been our mission to fuse those two circles of influence \u2014 that we take science and art to create something wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tTo that end, the venue has conceived something called The Sphere Experience, which starts the moment patrons enter the venue. Outside of the bowl-shaped theater, one of five identical, humanoid robots named Aura greets visitors and interacts with them about the venue\u2019s technology. Activations in the atrium \u201ctell the role of technology in humankind,\u201d according to Dibble; he\u2019s particularly excited about mathematical equations printed across the space with QR codes that, when scanned, explain how the formulas were applied in engineering Sphere.<\/p>\n
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Interior rendering of Sphere.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\tBut The Sphere Experience\u2019s centerpiece is exclusive content produced by Sphere Studios to be presented in the bowl \u2014 upon its opening, the Aronofsky-directed Postcard From Earth<\/em>, a narrative-meets-documentary experience that was filmed on every continent. The show flexes the full potential of Sphere\u2019s 4D multisensory technology, including effects like vibration, wind, scent and temperature fluctuations; it will debut with a per-show capacity of 5,000, with the possibility to increase attendance in the future (Sphere has 10,000 seats equipped with haptic capabilities). Across up to four showings, as many as 20,000 people will be able to experience Postcard From Earth<\/em> on some days this fall, each paying between $49 and $249; as many at Sphere note, far more patrons will initially engage with the venue through Postcard From Earth<\/em> rather than U2.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a new medium, and we were really figuring it out as we went along,\u201d Aronofsky tells Billboard<\/em>. \u201cThe joke was often that we were building the plane while learning how to fly it. And so I think now that we have made Postcard From Earth<\/em>, which uses the form in perhaps its most obvious way, I look forward to seeing what filmmakers in the future do in this medium.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"Sphere](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-billboard-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
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