CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Sphere Developers Officially Pull-Out of London Offer

www.ticketnews.com: The developers behind the famed Las Vegas MSG Sphere were attempting to bring the highly acclaimed venue to London, however, after the city’s mayor spoke-out about his opposition to the proposal, plans have officially been withdrawn.

4 comments:

Owen Sheehan said...

Thank god the sphere isn't going to London. I think the only place that the sphere works is in Las Vegas as that's the only place where something that tacky and out of place works. My qualm isn't with the technology or inside of the venue, but rather with the outside video surface. While having a ball that maps spherical projections is cool, it also can be quite an eyesore for the people who have to live with it on top of possibly destroying a cities skyline. While the Sphere in Las Vegas does sometimes have visuals that aren't advertisements, this is more often then not, not the case. The surface is basically just a giant build board most of the time with incredibly annoying ads, not to mention it throws a shit ton of light around it, causing even more light pollution cause why wouldn't it.

Joshua Egolf said...

Ever since I heard about plans to build a sphere in London, I was skeptical. I always thought that I wouldn’t fit into the city’s vibe, unlike how having a sphere in Las Vegas matches the city’s vibe perfectly. I have loved the idea of the sphere and I think it is a really cool idea as a marketing platform and an even cooler idea as an event venue. It makes so much sense that their next place of interest is in the United Arab Emirates. If those plans go through, the sphere in Abu Dhabi would make insane amounts of money and would fit in very well. I think that some of the next sphere locations should be in Tokyo, Macau, Sydney, and Paris. It would be very cool to see spheres pop up in cities around the world over the next decade or so.

Sam Regardie said...

My first reaction to reading this headline was almost the exact same as Owen's: "thank god." While I find the technology used in (and on the outside of) the sphere fascinating and very impressive, I don't particularly like it for much more than that. The spherical shape is simply too abnormal in my opinion. London has its share of strange-looking buildings (I'm thinking of the gherkin, the shard, and the walkie-talkie), but a massive sphere easily surpasses these in terms of not fitting in. The entire surface being covered in screens is a massive eyesore, which may be cool for tourists (making it fitting for a place like Vegas) but will undoubtedly quickly begin to torture the people who have to look at it every day. I don't think it is necessary to build spheres in more cities like the developers are attempting to do. But hey, if it's a place for advertisements, might as well make some money right?? Man, do I love capitalism!!

Alex Reinard said...

I don’t really know if I’m glad that the sphere didn’t make it to London or not. I guess I don’t care, since I’m not from London. But I do think that the sphere is really stupid, and I know at least that if somebody tried to put that trash in my town I’d be pretty angry. I think that the sphere is pretty at home in a place like Las Vegas, and I guess when it’s there it’s actually pretty cool because it fits in. I don’t think it would fit in somewhere like London, of course – although I suppose if you had to put it somewhere, Stratford would probably be the place. At the end of the day, I just find it to be big and obnoxious, and in any case the area used to build a big and obnoxious shape could be used for something a little more useful.