I went to The Sphere Las Vegas and it blew my mind
If you’ve ever been planning a trip to Las Vegas, now is your time.
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Right now, you can only see U2, which is sad (for you!) if you don’t like U2, but brilliant if you do ...
What is The Sphere?
The Sphere in Las Vegas (it’s actually just called “Sphere”, but everyone calls it “the Sphere”, so feel free to also do that) is a live entertainment venue on the Las Vegas Strip, attached to the Venetian Hotel and Casino. But wait, there’s more! Sphere is no usual place, it is the most hi-tech venue ever built, and is also the largest spherical building on earth.
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By largest, that means truly, truly massive: it is home to the world’s biggest LED screen, which displays 16k resolution both inside the venue and on the outside, in millions of colours. It is over 110 metres tall and 150 metres wide. You can see it sitting on the Strip from kilometres outside of the city. It seats over 18,000 people and its sound system includes 1,600 permanently installed and 300 mobile HOLOPLOT X1 Matrix Array loudspeaker modules and includes a total of 167,000 individually amplified loudspeaker drivers.
It is also perfectly temperature controlled, so you are in a level of comfort to which few gig goers will have ever been accustomed.
Who can I see at The Sphere?
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Right now, you can only see U2, which is sad (for you!) if you don’t like U2, but brilliant if you do. U2 opened Sphere as the first artists to play inside it with a show called U2:UV, a six month residency retrospective of their classic 1991 album, Achtung Baby, which they play in full along with a handful of other sweepingly massive songs from their catalog (With Or Without You, Where The Streets Have No Name, Beautiful Day – all the kinds of tracks that were tailormade to be heard in such a sensorially overwhelming venue as Sphere is.)
How much are tickets to The Sphere?
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Uh, extremely expensive. At least they can be, if you want to have a very extravagant and quintessentially Las Vegas experience and pay over $2000USD for a hotel and ticket package that includes a bunch of exclusive merch, or, you can find tickets for the seats in the low hundreds before they sell out. Because of the limited number of shows, the resale market is out of control, with some floor tickets having sold at more than $US10,000.
On the other end of the cost scale, if you’re a university student with a current enrolment, you can rock up to the Sphere on the day of the show and try to get one of the $25 tickets available for the floor, in front of the stage. Imagine how great it would feel to be standing mere feet from Bono, right next to someone who paid between 100 and four hundred times more than you did (kids, stay in school.) Perhaps, like I was, you might be close enough to touch him on the shoulder when he lays back on the first few rows to gently crowdsurf.
What is the show like at The Sphere?
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As someone who absolutely adores U2, and whose favourite album of theirs is Achtung Baby, it was practically a religious experience. U2 have been in U2 for almost five decades since meeting in highschool, and on this tour they are absolutely fighting fit (their personal trainer is listed in the tour book), and play the 2.5 hour show with a truly infectious energy that is sustained for the entire set.
There are some wild visual effects in this show, including one that makes it appear as if Bono is looking every single person in the eye, no matter where they are sitting, as he sings straight down the camera. How is this even possible? I have no idea! But it was quite entrancing, and if it’s meant to imply that he has some kind of all-seeing, God-like powers, I’m buying it.
Check U2’s social media channels for loads of video content that displays the power of the Sphere’s domed, continuous screen and the video art that was commissioned specially for the show.
How does it sound?
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Sphere’s immense sound system creates total polyphonic sound, which you can hear all around you from every direction. This in itself is something novel to experience, it is truly crystal clear sound wherever you are. On the downside, it was just not loud enough for if you like your stadium rock shows to be closer to deafening; you don’t feel it hit you in the same way inside Sphere as you do at a big outdoor rock show. In fact, it’s sometimes possible to hear people talking beside you, which could make it feel more like a very, very impressive cinema, than a live music venue.
Please put your phone down
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For the love of Mike, no one travels across the world to watch the screen of the phone of the person in front of them the whole time. Gig etiquette seems to have gone completely out the window, with loads of people more concerned with filming the entire show than actually experiencing it (take a few pics in the first few songs, yes, but please be reasonable!) A major improvement to the experience of Sphere would be shows that don’t allow phones in at all. Until then, have no qualms in politely telling someone to get their phone out of your face.
Is The Sphere worth it?
Without doubt. If you’ve ever been planning a trip to Las Vegas, now is your time. Sphere is a benchmark in 21st century art and design, and to see live music within it is an experience that is flatout worth it, especially if either Vegas or U2 are things on your travel bucket list. Remember: what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, including however much money you spent on getting there.
Originally published as I went to The Sphere Las Vegas and it blew my mind
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