Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
CMU School of Drama
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
The Sphere Could be Headed to Your City (With a Smaller Footprint)
gizmodo.com: The company behind Las Vegas’s Sphere announced plans on Monday to bring a smaller version of the orb-shaped venue to the National Harbor outside Washington, D.C.
I don't know how to feel about the sphere. On one hand, it's a crazy technological feat that is impressive to look at, on the other hand, it's a giant glowing billboard that has become part of a city’s skyline. While these buildings are cool, the cost of creating them makes attending events is prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of people, and if they're going to start popping up all over the place I think it's just going to create a bunch of light pollution and fill the skyline with ads for clash of clans. To quote my friend Lydia “they're making more? Why?” I don't think we as a society need to be spending half a billion dollars to create glowing buildings, but I don't think the CEO of Sphere tech is listening to me. So I guess when one eventually pops up here in pittsburg, I might go to give it a look.
The sphere is an interesting venue and I think it will be interesting to see how it continues to evolve over time. I think that having a network of spheres around the world to tour shows through after their initial run in the Vegas sphere makes a lot of sense, but we will have to see how it ends up working out. I think that part of why the sphere can be successful right now is it’s novelty, and I wonder how long that novelty will take to wear off. The more spheres that you have, the less unique each one is and the less people there will be who have never seen a performance in a sphere before and want to see what it is like. I do think that in the long term there is a change of spheres being a wide-reaching way to exhibit media, but I doubt that the economics will work out compared to a normal movie theater, arena, or just someone's phone at home.
I absolutely hate the sphere. It's ugly, loud, and just straight up light pollution. Why does it exist, other than to be a big surface to advertise on? It makes sense in Vegas, a city that is meant to keep you awake as long as possible. BUT DC? That's insane. To me, DC is a very serious city - it's where the government goes to play. A giant sphere that occasionally blinks at you, or plays an advertisement for Coca-Cola is not an appropriate thing to exist in that space. DC is not a place people go to for nightlife or media. I don't even think the sphere should exist in Las Vegas, hot take. It's ugly and extremely bad for the energy usage of Las Vegas. It's also consistently LOSING money, because nobody wants to go there. I wish i could be a fly on the wall in the executives' room hearing them try and pitch another sphere. Not fun.
This is extremely interesting and cool to me, and proves how innovative the Sphere is. It truly could be the next standard for theatre venues, as it increases how immersive the theatre is, it basically turns one of those crappy amusement park 4d rides into a high budget theatre. While yes, it was controversial in the past, specifically with its use of AI in Wizard of Oz, it still is a very impressive venue, both from a creative and engineering standpoint. Just seeing videos of a few of its productions, it's definitely a muti-use space and can definitely turn a profit in no time. The one thing people must consider is the impact of the people around it. While it fits on the strip because you can literally see the strip from space due to the light it creates, I don’t know how it will fit in a smaller town, specifically where it's going in Maryland. It could create more harm though the light pollution then its benefits, which will be interesting to see how policy makers deal with that.
I was pretty stoked when I heard about this. As someone from the DMV area, I’m glad such an impressive venue is being placed nearby at National Harbor. I was just recently there about a month ago, it's a pretty nice place to go out with friends or family with many things you can do. I’ve always wanted to see the sphere in person so I’m glad that will be a better possibility. It’s a pretty impressive venue, I believe it would open up a lot of people to live performances with its visual appeal. I can understand how some people may not want it. If the company behind it wants to build more across the world, it would just ruin its uniqueness and make it less appealing. However, seeing the distance between the current one in Las Vegas and the one they plan to build in National Harbor, makes the venue much easier to access by people who may be interested in going to see it. Hopefully they will try to focus on placing these venues internationally after they build this one.
I think the Sphere is one of those things that I don’t fully know how to feel about, but I can’t deny that it’s fascinating. On one hand, it really is an insane piece of technology, just the scale of the LED surface and the immersive productions they’ve done so far are kind of wild. I get why people are curious about it. But at the same time, it’s strange to imagine a smaller version suddenly popping up near D.C., especially in a place that isn’t known for flashy entertainment spaces. It makes me wonder how it will actually fit into the atmosphere there. I’m also curious whether the novelty will still be strong enough for a second Sphere to succeed, especially since the Las Vegas one struggled financially at first. Even so, the idea of having another venue that can create such immersive visuals is interesting, and I’m curious to see how people respond to it.
Like many other comments on this article, I don’t really know how to feel about the sphere. I think its definitely as super interesting and fascinating venue, but I do agree that the light pollution it causes and also the blatant capitalistic nature of it sucks. It’s also from what I’ve heard, VERY loud and I can imagine it being very inconvenient to live nearby, even as someone who cannot sleep without noise and has grown up in a noisy city for nearly all their life. Overall I’m not sure if the pros outweigh the cons. Not only that, but D.C???? I don’t really understand the location choice for the next one. D.C. seems like the wrong place for a sphere, even just going off of vibes and how the place seems to work/be. I don’t know, I think its pretty unnecessary and just not fitting for an area such as D.C.
7 comments:
I don't know how to feel about the sphere. On one hand, it's a crazy technological feat that is impressive to look at, on the other hand, it's a giant glowing billboard that has become part of a city’s skyline. While these buildings are cool, the cost of creating them makes attending events is prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of people, and if they're going to start popping up all over the place I think it's just going to create a bunch of light pollution and fill the skyline with ads for clash of clans. To quote my friend Lydia “they're making more? Why?” I don't think we as a society need to be spending half a billion dollars to create glowing buildings, but I don't think the CEO of Sphere tech is listening to me. So I guess when one eventually pops up here in pittsburg, I might go to give it a look.
The sphere is an interesting venue and I think it will be interesting to see how it continues to evolve over time. I think that having a network of spheres around the world to tour shows through after their initial run in the Vegas sphere makes a lot of sense, but we will have to see how it ends up working out. I think that part of why the sphere can be successful right now is it’s novelty, and I wonder how long that novelty will take to wear off. The more spheres that you have, the less unique each one is and the less people there will be who have never seen a performance in a sphere before and want to see what it is like. I do think that in the long term there is a change of spheres being a wide-reaching way to exhibit media, but I doubt that the economics will work out compared to a normal movie theater, arena, or just someone's phone at home.
I absolutely hate the sphere. It's ugly, loud, and just straight up light pollution. Why does it exist, other than to be a big surface to advertise on? It makes sense in Vegas, a city that is meant to keep you awake as long as possible. BUT DC? That's insane. To me, DC is a very serious city - it's where the government goes to play. A giant sphere that occasionally blinks at you, or plays an advertisement for Coca-Cola is not an appropriate thing to exist in that space. DC is not a place people go to for nightlife or media. I don't even think the sphere should exist in Las Vegas, hot take. It's ugly and extremely bad for the energy usage of Las Vegas. It's also consistently LOSING money, because nobody wants to go there. I wish i could be a fly on the wall in the executives' room hearing them try and pitch another sphere. Not fun.
This is extremely interesting and cool to me, and proves how innovative the Sphere is. It truly could be the next standard for theatre venues, as it increases how immersive the theatre is, it basically turns one of those crappy amusement park 4d rides into a high budget theatre. While yes, it was controversial in the past, specifically with its use of AI in Wizard of Oz, it still is a very impressive venue, both from a creative and engineering standpoint. Just seeing videos of a few of its productions, it's definitely a muti-use space and can definitely turn a profit in no time. The one thing people must consider is the impact of the people around it. While it fits on the strip because you can literally see the strip from space due to the light it creates, I don’t know how it will fit in a smaller town, specifically where it's going in Maryland. It could create more harm though the light pollution then its benefits, which will be interesting to see how policy makers deal with that.
I was pretty stoked when I heard about this. As someone from the DMV area, I’m glad such an impressive venue is being placed nearby at National Harbor. I was just recently there about a month ago, it's a pretty nice place to go out with friends or family with many things you can do. I’ve always wanted to see the sphere in person so I’m glad that will be a better possibility. It’s a pretty impressive venue, I believe it would open up a lot of people to live performances with its visual appeal. I can understand how some people may not want it. If the company behind it wants to build more across the world, it would just ruin its uniqueness and make it less appealing. However, seeing the distance between the current one in Las Vegas and the one they plan to build in National Harbor, makes the venue much easier to access by people who may be interested in going to see it. Hopefully they will try to focus on placing these venues internationally after they build this one.
I think the Sphere is one of those things that I don’t fully know how to feel about, but I can’t deny that it’s fascinating. On one hand, it really is an insane piece of technology, just the scale of the LED surface and the immersive productions they’ve done so far are kind of wild. I get why people are curious about it. But at the same time, it’s strange to imagine a smaller version suddenly popping up near D.C., especially in a place that isn’t known for flashy entertainment spaces. It makes me wonder how it will actually fit into the atmosphere there. I’m also curious whether the novelty will still be strong enough for a second Sphere to succeed, especially since the Las Vegas one struggled financially at first. Even so, the idea of having another venue that can create such immersive visuals is interesting, and I’m curious to see how people respond to it.
Like many other comments on this article, I don’t really know how to feel about the sphere. I think its definitely as super interesting and fascinating venue, but I do agree that the light pollution it causes and also the blatant capitalistic nature of it sucks. It’s also from what I’ve heard, VERY loud and I can imagine it being very inconvenient to live nearby, even as someone who cannot sleep without noise and has grown up in a noisy city for nearly all their life. Overall I’m not sure if the pros outweigh the cons. Not only that, but D.C???? I don’t really understand the location choice for the next one. D.C. seems like the wrong place for a sphere, even just going off of vibes and how the place seems to work/be. I don’t know, I think its pretty unnecessary and just not fitting for an area such as D.C.
Post a Comment