Brendan Rubey

Kevin Kozak

RPTM 370

7 September 2023

Las Vegas MSG Sphere

The Las Vegas strip is one of the brightest areas at night with all the different things they

have to make it one of the most premier places for nightlife. They just made it brighter and so

unique with the creation of the MSG Sphere. With the creation of this sphere it has now become

the largest spherical structure in the world. When this place decides to finally open the amount of

people that this venue will bring in is going to continue to make Vegas one of the most visited

places in the world.

This venue, no matter what event or show, is going to bring in huge crowds. The main

things that they are going to use it on is music, films, and some sporting events. What a member

of U2 said in a CNN article is “most music venues are sports venues. They’re built for sports –

they’re not built for music. They’re not built for art, This building was built for immersive

experiences in cinema and performance … you can’t come here and see an ice hockey game

(Griggs).” With the big spherical sphere the inside provides this wrap around screen covered in

LED lights. This will make the concert or cinema experience so much more engaging with

anyone in this venue having a great view anywhere they sit. At a concert or a large movie no one

enjoys it as much as they want to when they sit in the back and they can barely see the

performers on stage or a screen. In this venue, wherever they sit they will have a great view of

any part of the screen. This will allow the shows to have their guests be more immersed in the

show and have a less likelihood of people leaving early.

 If you have a look at pictures of the stage area you can see that the area down there is

very small. So when they say that they want to have some sports events there that makes them

very limited in what they can book. This means they really cannot have any of those four main

high market sports that includes baseball, football, hockey or basketball. There is enough space

though for some rings for boxing, UFC and WWE events. All of these three events would still

bring a huge following especially once this place opens and people get the chance to experience

this place. Then I feel like no one would want to miss the experience they could have here from

seeing a fight.

When it comes to tenants, having one at the sphere is very unlikely and really not

possible. Usually a tenant is a sports team but since this place cannot really hold those big sports

events it is not feasible. Also with fighting being a sport that does not stay in one location for

long they would not work as well. When it comes to acts you do not really want one act to

always play there and be a tenant. What is going to keep bringing this place money is having a

variety of acts and for the people to see what different experiences they can have with these

different acts. With having the same act or someone who comes around a couple times a week

people might get bored and they might start losing business as time goes on.

The MSG sphere is unlike anything that we have seen before. This sphere was built to be

different from basically all venues in the world so there are really no big similarities to other

arenas. The thing that you could say is similar is that it has a similar dome shape to some

stadiums. This allows you to have events no matter how the weather. This place was built though

to be unique with its 1.2 million hockey puck sized LEDs throughout the sphere. The sphere also

“will have the highest resolution screen in the world at 19,000 by 13,500 pixels. That’s 100 times

clearer than today’s best HD TVs (Griggs).” This is going to be able to be visible no matter
where you are. “The screen goes from ground (level) to 250 feet high, all the way around

(Griggs)…” says Claffey, the Sphere operations officer. “It keeps you fully immersed when

you’re sitting in that bowl. I used to love IMAX in New York City, but this will blow that away

(Griggs).” This experience is going to be like nothing you have ever experienced before. This

place was made for shows and having experiences that you have never done before. Current

arena that people perform in can not provide what this can. They are trying to make it into an

entertainment venue of the future so they do not want to have many similarities with what venues

do now.

The cost of the sphere has now reached 2.3 billion dollars. The original estimate for this

place was supposed to be 1.2 billion dollars but because of Covid and inflation that price went to

2.3 billion real quick. The funding sources for the sphere was Sphere Entertainment CO and

taxpayer dollars from the city of Las Vegas. The owner of this beautiful new arena is Madison

Square Garden Entertainment. In this company though they created a sub company to run this

building and manage their events and booking. This new company is called Sphere

Entertainment CO. They have a board of directors and a big group of managers who are deciding

what amazing performances they want to show the public in this beautiful venue.

This sphere is going to be bringing in huge amount of crowds coming soon and I cannot

wait to see how well they do and hear about the amazing experiences people are going to have

here. With what they have there is no reason that they should not sell out every show. Even

though Vegas is probably already one of the top tourism destinations in the world, with this

opening soon it's going to attract so much more for them whenever these shows are happening.
 References

Griggs, Brandon. “This Futuristic Concert Venue in Las Vegas Is a Giant Sphere with the

World’s Biggest Led Screen.” CNN, Cable News Network, 6 July 2023,

www.cnn.com/2023/07/05/travel/msg-sphere-las-vegas-venue-cec/index.html.

Obando, Sebastian. “MSG Sphere Price Tag Increases Again, up $125M.” Construction Dive, 12

May 2023,

www.constructiondive.com/news/msg-sphere-price-tag-increases-again-125-million/6501

63/.

Roeben, Scott. “Everything You Need to Know about MSG Sphere in Las Vegas.” Vital Vegas, 4

Sept. 2023,

www.casino.org/vitalvegas/everything-you-need-to-know-about-msg-sphere-in-las-vegas/.