Sphere developer James Dolan discusses what’s next for new venue

It’s been open less than a month and already James Dolan’s Sphere project is the talk of the town and the newest Las Vegas icon.

Ground was broken in September 2018 and $2.3 billion later, the exosphere — the big screen on the outside of the building — was activated for the first time on the Fourth of July. At the end of September, U2 had its first of 25 shows and Darren Aronofsky’s “Postcard from Earth” had its debut showing a week later.

So what’s next for the 17,500-seat sphere-shaped performance venue?

Dolan, executive chairman and CEO of Sphere Entertainment Co., gave some of his perspectives in a short walk-and-talk interview while explaining the Sphere Experience to a group of journalists.

He was assisted by David Dibble, CEO of MSG Ventures, and Aura, a humanoid robot that interacts with patrons in the Sphere atrium.

Responses were edited for brevity and clarity.

Review-Journal: What is the Sphere Experience?

James Dolan: The Sphere Experience really starts the moment that you walk in the door of the Sphere and come to this atrium where you will find five different exhibits that are centered around the notion of how technology pushes human potential. Even today, people are very afraid of AI and things like that, but I just saw a picture of a sewing machine. When sewing machines came out, people were worried about what they were going to do. When the printing press came out and we could see technology just continuing to push human potential and so you will find exhibits around here all about the latest technology and how that does push human potential. Right next to us here is an avatar builder which is all about the metaverse and how we relate in our real world, in our meta world. And you can actually make yourself an avatar. I have one at home. And you can go and use it in your social media, etc. Or we’ll print a 3D version for you if you like. But it’s all about technology pushing you in potential. And of course, you’re guided by our robots, who will speak to you. Never quite know what they’re going to say, but you can pretty much ask them any question you like.

We want the atrium, the Sphere Experience in the atrium, to be inspirational and educational and fun, right? We want it to be approachable. It’s not just a bunch of gags. We want the approachability of the use of science, technology, mathematics, and physics to have real meaning to the people that are in here and get something from it.

RJ (addressing a robot): How’s your day been today, Aura?

Aura: Every day at Sphere is a beautiful day. How about you?

RJ: What’s your favorite part about being here?

Aura: Oh, there are too many interesting things about Sphere to limit it to just one.

Media member: What do you do when no one’s here?

Aura: What do you do when no one is around, human?

RJ: So this is a pre-show for the film?

Dolan: Yes. And then from there, you go up into the bowl and watch Darren Aronofsky’s “Postcard from Earth,” which I could spend time describing to you, but you’re going to see it, and any description I give to you will not do it justice. So you make up your own mind about it when you see it. But I think you will find that you’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s quite immersive. But this is the first of what will be many, the different versions of Sphere experiences. I’m not going to let out of the bag what the next one is, but we are working on the next one already.

RJ: Is it already in production?

Dolan: Yes, we’re already starting to work on the second one, probably coming out around this time next year, and we will keep refreshing. This in itself, we will also refresh. We’re still working on the atrium experience. We’re going to bring in more exhibits and keep populating it. So this will always be changing and always hopefully be interesting to everybody. And of course, then “Postcard” will be running for at least probably a year.

RJ: What’s on your horizon? What’s the future of this company and what are you going to do next?

Dolan: I’m going to take a rest. I was talking to Mr. Dibble about this this morning. He wants to move on to the next thing like tomorrow. Can we just take a week’s break? But no, we’re actively pursuing other markets to build other spheres and although I doubt we’ll ever be able to build one like Las Vegas again sometime, but we have six different kinds of spheres all the way down to a 3,000 seater and we’re ready to start taking this medium out to the rest of the world. Meanwhile, we’re working on new attractions, we also have new artists that are coming in building shows for their audiences, like U2 built their show. And we’re also continuing to refine the medium. That’s mostly Mr. Dibble’s area. He’s improving the technology every day. He keeps trying to put more stuff into our camera. But we’re busy propagating the word.

Media member: What are your personal thoughts to the positive reaction to Sphere and your own personal reaction to it? Did it live up to what you expected?

Dolan: I think I had the same reaction everybody else had and I saw it before. The worldwide reaction to U2 has been more than I expected. And I’m, of course, really happy about it. But that is going to be the nature of the Sphere. I can’t let any cats out of the bag here, but during Super Bowl, even when we’re doing something with the NFL or Formula One, there’s always going to be something different here, always going to be a place where you’ll find the first in a lot of things. And, of course, the exosphere is pretty fantastic and a lot of companies and a lot of groups want to use it to talk about what they are doing and we like that. And the other thing about the exosphere is that all the time, that 50 percent of the time on the exosphere is dedicated to art and education. The other 50 percent will be to make money from it. We should be making announcements soon about the Las Vegas schools and how they’re going to participate in the Sphere.

RJ: What will the educational component look like?

Dolan: We see the Sphere as being a medium. It’s a medium, but it’s exemplary of the use of technology and science and math. Particularly math. You will see around here math equations all over the place. We took all the equations we used to design the Sphere and we put them all into one place and then we gave them to a design firm which then created motifs out of them. But they also have QR codes on them and you can press on the QR code and see what that equation was used for. And we would love to get school children involved. We want them to understand that boring subjects like math and science aren’t really boring. That there’s a practical application for those subjects, and if you come to the Sphere, you’ll see how that algebra class actually relates to something like this.

RJ: Las Vegas is a big trade show city. Have you reached out to some of the trade shows that come here? I’m thinking CES is going to be here in a few months.

Dolan: We are talking to everybody. We have a very active trade show sales group. There’s something like 400 trade shows that come here a year. We’d love to talk to them all. And we’d love for them to also do exhibits here. So I still want to get the farming guys in here. We very much want to be a part of that convention community.

RJ: What kinds of applications can trade shows use for this building?

Dolan: Well, let’s take a look at John Deere, even though we haven’t landed John Deere. John Deere is perfect for what we’re talking about here because what’s happening in the farming industry is that it’s becoming mechanized and also they’re using things like AI that gets up in the morning, sees what the temperature is, sends out X amount of drone tractors, etc. and works the fields, etc. and we’d love to demonstrate that all here.

RJ: You must have something going on with CES, right?

Dolan: Well, we do. But I think I’ll let those companies have that moment. But we are doing a lot for Super Bowl and so we’ll be very very active for Super Bowl just as well as for F1.

RJ: How long are we going to have this exclusivity [with the Sphere], do you think? A couple of years at least?

Dolan: At least a couple of years. And the next one will probably, I’m guessing, won’t be in the United States.

RJ: What’s your favorite exosphere image?

Dolan: I love the eyeball. I love the pumpkin. Those might be my two… but I also love the emoji. I love the emoji in the morning. Right, you wake up with this sort of happy way to start your day.

Media member: What is the main takeaway you want for people traveling around the world who are coming here? When they come inside, experience the concert, experience what we’re about to see as well. What do you want them to leave with?

Dolan: Awe and wonder is my response. And enchantment. Enchantment, too. And only in Vegas.

RJ: What’s your end goal for the Sphere?

Dolan: I don’t think there is an end goal for the Sphere. I mean, the Sphere, look, this is a medium. It’s not just a building. And it’s going to continue to develop. When we first started to make motion pictures, what was the end goal for that? It wasn’t “Star Wars.” No one knew “Star Wars” was coming. I hope we’re going to see our own “Star Wars” come here and develop this well beyond what we would imagine.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.