Featured Image: Phillip Lebowitz/ CC BY-SA 4.0/ Edited for size
With the Sphere Experience opening today (Friday) and U2’s residency ongoing at the Sphere, TheTicketingBusiness has rounded up some of the reactions, reviews and insights into Las Vegas’ brand new venue.
Several reviews have noted that while the Sphere can hold 18,600 people, it still manages to maintain a level of intimacy, partly down to Irish rock band U2’s lead singer Bono.
“Was it the hard-to-fathom floor-to-ceiling graphics? Or the way the immersive audio made it feel like you were in a recording studio with U2? Or maybe the way Bono carried on a seemingly intimate conversation with 18,000-plus fans? It’s hard to pick the most impressive part of U2: UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere opening night,” wrote Katie Atkinson for Billboard.
#Sphere #U2 The view 🤩
pic.twitter.com/J6bXbb6aNi— Lify (@ChannelLify) October 1, 2023
Others have noted on social media that they can understand why the immersive Sphere venue came with a price tag of $2.3bn (£1.9bn/€2.2bn), and some said they were going to add a trip to their bucket list.
Now we know why the sphere costs $2.3B 🤯 🤯 🤯 #sphere #SphereVegas pic.twitter.com/7KL4lDa5Ua
— Chat BTC (@tjbitbounce) September 30, 2023
Another user said they did not know where to begin or if they had the “proper words to capture the experience”.
The newly spun off Sphere Entertainment operates the venue, which is located at the Venetian Resort and also includes an advanced humanoid robot named Aura, that interacts and greets guests as part of the fan experience.
U2 have now played three nights at the venue as part of their sold-out residency, which saw all pre-sale tickets for the initial 17 dates sell out earlier this year. A further eight were added to keep up with the incredible demand.
NIGHT 3 @U2
📷: @RichFury / Sphere Entertainment pic.twitter.com/taPwsNxgmr
— Sphere (@SphereVegas) October 6, 2023
On U2’s opening show, The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis wrote: “This cocktail of eye-popping visuals and slightly unruly performances absolutely works, allaying any concerns that a band from the post-punk era and the old showbiz connotations of a residency in Las Vegas constitute a slightly uncomfortable fit, regardless of how many millions of records the band has sold, or how mainstream an audience they’ve attracted in the interim.
“Indeed, it works so well that, like Abba’s Voyage show, you leave feeling confident this is an idea others are going to copy: clearly other rock bands are going to turn up to the Sphere in the future, bearing performances big on dazzling technology. Whether they’ll be as dazzling, or indeed as charming as this, time will show.”
You can watch a below the scenes look at the venue from Apple Music below:
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