How the Sphere plans to boost profits — and how much you’ll pay

Operators of the Sphere believe they’re getting the hang of boosting profitability for the giant performance venue now that it has been open for more than a year.

Sphere Entertainment Co. has said the public can expect more events there — possibly multiple shows each day — and that one of the goals is to have something going on in the 17,000-seat venue every day of the year.

While representatives of the company aren’t commenting on historic changes in ticket pricing, there’s been little erosion in the cost of tickets for the Sphere’s most frequently scheduled event, the Sphere Experience with the showing of the Darren Aronofsky film “Postcard from Earth.”

Months ago, tickets for the Sphere Experience and “Postcard” were going for around $119 per person for the least expensive seats through Ticketmaster. Today, you can find tickets for $99 a seat.

Sphere Executive Chairman and CEO James Dolan told analysts in a first-quarter earnings conference call on Nov. 12 that the road to profitability includes building a library of film options to present on a rotating basis.

V-U2 film

The first of those new films is “V-U2 An Immersive Concert Film,” a movie version of U2’s 2023 and 2024 Sphere performances, which debuted in September.

Ticketmaster is selling seats for that film for between $100 and $200.

Dolan said seeing the film is the next-best thing to actually being in the audience for one of U2’s performances.

“You feel like you’re at the concert,” he said. “So, you know, we have some great bands that are coming in over the next year. And so I think we will continue to capture their concerts using our Big Sky technology. How we then bring it to the public and market it, I think we’re still trying to figure out what’s the best way.”

Eagles residency

“Big Sky” is the camera technology Sphere uses to capture images for films projected on the Sphere’s interior 160,000-square-foot digital LED screen. Aronofsky used it for “Postcard,” and it was also used to capture U2 performances.

Sphere technologists could add more content to the library after a year of residency performances that have included Phish, Dead and Company and the Eagles.

In December, a miniresidency centered around New Year’s Eve is scheduled with Afterlife’s “The End Of Genesys” featuring electronic dance music star Anyma. The Eagles residency began in September and, due to continuous demand, has been extended to 32 shows over 16 weekends through mid-April.

The Eagles residency is the current big-ticket performance at the Sphere. Fans of the Grammy-winning 1970s American rock band can purchase concert tickets for anywhere from $314 for the cheapest side section seats to $2,500 for the best in the house.

No ‘special sauce’

Dolan has promised that more band performances are in the queue, and he said his frustration now is not being able to schedule all the bands that want to perform there in the months ahead. Dolan seems to enjoy teasing the masses by not hinting at what bands are coming next and when they’ll be there.

In the Nov. 12 earnings call, an analyst asked Dolan to share what’s coming next and what feature film content might be on the horizon. But he would have none of it.

“Ah, well, now you’re asking for the special sauce,” he said. “Now, we don’t do the special sauce. You’re going to have to wait with everybody else. I’ll just tell you it’s going to be great and you’ll love it. We’ll tell you more about it later, but no special sauce.”

Dolan also keeps details of Sphere’s advertising revenue close to the vest as well as the potential for new one-off events.

Sphere has put its toe in the waters of live sports. It has twice hosted a viewing venue for the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix, placed an octagon within the Sphere with UFC 306 in September and hosted the National Hockey League Draft in June.

Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, has said UFC 306 on Sept. 24 was one of the greatest UFC spectacles of all time. (The event, part of a special Mexican Independence Day celebration, featured bantamweight Merab Dvalishvili defeating Sean O’Malley by unanimous decision.) But he also said he didn’t expect to bring mixed martial arts back to the Sphere.

On the convention side, the Sphere hosted its first business conference keynote address in June when Hewlett Packard Enterprise President and CEO Antonio Neri took the stage for a 75-minute presentation peppered with stock Big Sky imagery that delighted the tech crowd.

Another business keynote is scheduled for Jan. 7, when Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian is set to take the stage for CES as the airline observes 100 years of operations with an immersive keynote highlighting Delta’s vision for using technology to enrich human experiences. It’ll be the first CES event ever staged in the building.

Sphere has never disclosed how much revenue it generates for sports, business events or advertising, but events continue to be added to the calendar.

Sphere Abu Dhabi

Another path to Sphere profitability will be replicating the Las Vegas Sphere experience in other locations.

The company announced its second location in October, revealing that an agreement has been reached with the Department of Culture and Tourism-Abu Dhabi, known as DCT Abu Dhabi, that the world’s second Sphere would be built in the United Arab Emirates.

The company gave no indication when ground would be broken, when the new Sphere would open or how much it is expected to cost.

Dolan has indicated he expects the Abu Dhabi Sphere to be developed more efficiently than the Las Vegas project because of the experience the company gained in building in Southern Nevada. The Las Vegas Sphere cost $2.3 billion to build, and Dolan took heat from investors for cost overruns that partially were attributable to slowdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Sphere Entertainment strategy all along has been to build multiple Spheres worldwide to capitalize on an idea that has generated so much attention.

As has been the case for so many other Sphere-related elements, Dolan is content to keep the public guessing as to where a new Sphere will appear next and how the next-generation venue will continue to change the face of entertainment.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.