Sphere future versions – ‘Small is Beautiful’

Article posted by Coliseum, March 24^th, 2025

Image: The Sphere at the Venetian Resort, Cory Doctorow, CC BY-SA 2.0

The future versions of the Sphere will be considerably smaller than the one in Las Vegas (US) when the franchise is expanded globally, the company’s (Sphere Entertainment Company) top executive said.

‘LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL’ stated that James Dolan, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Sphere Entertainment Company told investors in the company’s second-quarter earnings call that while the future Sphere venues would still have all of the technology and content of the Las Vegas Sphere the new ones would have seating capacities around 5,000 instead of the 17,000 Las Vegas has.

The 17,600-capacity Sphere is a music and entertainment arena in Paradise, Nevada, United States, East of the Las Vegas Strip. Designed by the famed design firm Populous the project was announced by the Madison Square Garden Company (a world leader in live sports and entertainment experiences) in 2018 known then as the MSG Sphere.

Lined with upscale casino hotels the neon-soaked Strip is quintessential Las Vegas. Apart from the gambling floors the vast hotel complexes house a variety of shops, restaurants (ranging from mainstream to high-end) and performance venues for music, comedy and circus-style acts. Attractions like the soaring, choreographed Fountains of Bellagio and the High Roller observation wheel draw crowds.

Populous is a global architectural and design practice with regional headquarters in Kansas City (US), London (UK) and Brisbane (Australia) specializing in sports facilities, arenas and convention centers as well as in the planning and design of major special events.

The Sphere Entertainment Company is an American entertainment holding company based in New York City and controlled by the family of Charles Dolan. It owns the Sphere event venue in Paradise, Nevada.

Dolan said in response to an inquiry about expansion, “As far as expansion goes beyond Abu Dhabi we’re currently working on the architecture for a smaller Sphere which we think will be deployable to more markets. Somewhere in the 5,000-seat range. But we’re looking to take advantage of the content we’ve created already and the business we’ve created already and bringing it out to the other markets. So, I anticipate by year end we’ll have more to say about that. But right now we’re in the planning and design phase.”

In October the New York-based company announced that the world’s second Sphere would be built in a partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism-Abu Dhabi, known as DCT Abu Dhabi. No construction timeline or opening date has been announced.

The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) is the principal authority driving the sustainable growth of Abu Dhabi’s (UAE) culture and tourism sectors promoting the Emirate’s heritage and culture and marketing it as a global destination.

A plan to build a Sphere in London (UK) was aborted last year and there have been reports about Sphere negotiations being conducted with groups in South Korea.

Dolan has long said a network of Spheres that would take advantage of what developers learned when building in Las Vegas would make the company more profitable in the future.

Dolan also said that although he expects the content and scheduling in the Abu Dhabi Sphere would vary from Las Vegas he expects many of the film presentations the company has planned would be a part of the Abu Dhabi library of content.

Mix Presentations

‘LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL’ further stated that the Las Vegas Sphere currently provides a mix of live concert residencies, the Darren Aronofsky film ‘Postcard from Earth’, the immersive concert film ‘V-U2’ that shows musical performances from U2’s (Irish rock band) Sphere residency, and several corporate presentations including the Delta Air Lines keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

The ‘Postcard from Earth’ is a 2023 film directed by Darren Aronofsky starring Brandon Santana and Zaya Ribeiro. Created specifically to be screened at Sphere in the Las Vegas Valley on the venue’s 160,000 square-foot video screen the film was shot in an 18K resolution with the Big Sky camera system.
The company also generates revenue from advertising on the venue’s exosphere.

During the quarter that ended December 31^st the ‘Postcard from Earth’ passed its 1,000th performance, the electronic music act ‘Afterlife Presents: Anyma – The End of Genesys’ debuted and the Eagles’ (American rock band) 32-show residency continued. New residencies by Dead & Company (American rock band), Kenny Chesney (American singer) and the Backstreet Boys (American vocal group) were announced.

Dolan said that another musical residency film is being produced but he didn’t say which artistes are involved. The executives have said because of the high sound quality of the Sphere and the use of the Big Sky camera system attending a film presentation in the Sphere is nearly like having the artiste in the venue.

For the quarter the company continues to lose money with the operations of the MSG Network a part of the corporate structure. But the venue itself had improved results over the previous year but still operated at a loss.

Overall, the company reported an operating loss of $142.9 million, a $16.7 million improvement from the prior year quarter. Revenue was $308.3 million, a 1.9 percent decline from last year.

The company also announced that it is transitioning to quarterly reports for the calendar year so that the new fiscal year will run from January 1^st through December 31^st.

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