When friends invited us to join them in Las Vegas to see Katy Perry’s Play in its last week, I was excited to think we could also pay a visit to the brand-new Sphere. I initially had high hopes of scoring U2 tickets but they were priced starting at $750, and were sold out for the only night we could attend. That was actually kind of a relief because it spared us from some unpleasant decision-making.
But tickets to the movie Postcard From Earth were available and much nicer priced. Although I initially saw a price point of $48, we ended up paying $99 each for four tickets. (The venue’s website now says tickets start at $69). It felt good to have tickets to see something so fresh—Sphere is known to be the world’s largest spherical structure at 366 feet tall and 516 feet wide and contains the world’s highest resolution LED screen. But the best part is actually the robots in the lobby. They’re intelligent and interact with you. As an example, one robot questioned my friend’s cowboy hat, and after my friend explained that she needed it to keep the sun off her face, the robot immediately pointed out that there was no sun inside. It was a common sense answer, but definitely demonstrated some critical thinking and made us more than a little creeped out. Thanks to a tip from an employee in the elevator, we asked our robot to sing and she even added a few uncanny valley dance moves.
Speaking of frightening, the escalators are. They ascend all the way to the top of the dome and as you crane over and look, you feel like this could be an excellent place to off someone with a good shove. The interior feels futuristic with blue lighting and light-based art installations: the world’s largest holographic display. Like Old Rose in Titanic marveling over how the china had never been used, I liked the newness of it all—it opened September 29 and we were there October 15. It was fun to talk to food service workers who admitted they’re still working out the kinks, and crowd wrangler Chad Stoll enthused that Sphere was “the coolest thing—I’m proud to be here. People came from all over the country to help us open it.” You can also make your own 360-degree avatar.
The ticketing lets you into Sphere’s atrium 60 minutes in advance to explore and chat with robots, but arrive even earlier because Security takes a while to get through. After we engaged with the robots, and grabbed some tacos and beer, we went into the auditorium itself. It’s a cool space with, of course, enormous curving screens. The rows of seats are very steep—definitely not the kind of place you want to be getting to your seat late when the lights are down and the show has already started (and in fact, late seating is not permitted for Postcard From Earth). Weirdest fact: the whole venue is cashless, so there are reverse ATMs so you can convert cash into a debit card to purchase snacks and cocktails.
The 50-minute movie itself is gorgeous, with views of snow-covered mountains, underwater fish schools, and people around the world harvesting fruit or doing their jobs. It’s reminiscent of Disney’s Soaring, which we had just seen a few weeks prior, but to the nth degree of immersiveness. There were also haptics so that the seats trembled with thunder in an on-screen storm, or shook with an elephant’s steps across the savannah. But the movie took on its own identity with a sci-fi storyline about leaving Earth to inhabit Mars. It’s definitely worth seeing. IMDB relates that since it’s shown at 18k resolution, you can see around 2,000 crew members’ credits at once on the 270-degree screen.
After the show, I had to go straight to the airport on an earlier flight than my companions. While we had walked to Sphere easily on surface streets, we joined the throng using the skyway to the Venetian, which was a total mess of people—but that’s typical for leaving a show. Still, if I hadn’t left my luggage at the Venetian since Sphere has no bag or coat check, exiting the street would have been the better way to go. It seems wild that with all that space, there’s nowhere to stow bags or wet raincoats. A pop-up bagcheck could easily be situated in some of those vast unused lobbies and hallways between Sphere and Venetian.
Overall, we were excited to have been inside and seen what all the buzz is about. A $99 ticket is worth it now while Sphere is so new but might not be as it ages. We didn’t need Bono and The Edge to thoroughly enjoy the experience—which is not to say I wouldn’t try to get tickets in the future once the price calms down. (And the latest news is that Phish is coming in April; tickets go on sale to the general public on December 15).