Like yours, my first glimpses of the Sphere in Las Vegas were online ones. I’d seen pictures and videos crop up in social media posts showing the glowing orb on the outskirts of the Vegas skyline and in the banner images atop a rash of recent stories in the press by writers in places such as the Atlantic and the Paris Review who, I noticed, had more dazzled reactions than I would have expected. In fact, they seemed to be more dazzled than they had expected. So when a recent road trip out west occasioned a stopover in Sin City, I was looking forward to seeing it in the steel.
Under construction since 2019 as part of a deal between the Madison Square Garden Company and Las Vegas Sands Corporation, the $2.3 billion arena came online with its 580,000-square-foot exterior screen flashing a “hello world” message in October 2023. Now jointly owned by MSG and something called the Sphere Entertainment Company after the initial ownership deal fell apart, it already makes for such a highlight of the Vegas skyline that, when I went to book hotel rooms, several of the Strip resorts offered an option for more expensive “Sphere View” rooms. As it happened, while I cheaped out and didn’t pay for a Sphere view, my first in-person look at the object in question came as I walked into my room in the Horseshoe and looked over the bed and out the window.
Read Full Article »
