Las Vegas ‘Sphere’ takes entertainment to a new level

The newest attraction in Las Vegas isn’t a casino

Lesson summary

Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English, where we help you upgrade your English with current events and trending topics. By listening here, and doing the exercises online, you’ll expand your vocabulary, improve your listening, and become more confident in your second—or maybe third?—language.

This is lesson number 631 of Plain English and that means you can find the full transcript and all the exercises, videos, and resources at PlainEnglish.com/631.

Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s best known for its casinos. But “Sin City,” as they call it, is also a great place to see concerts, boxing matches, and shows; to go to VIP clubs; and to eat at fantastic restaurants. Now, though, Las Vegas has a new attraction—unlike anything else in the world. We’ll talk about that in today’s story.

In the second half of the lesson, we’ll talk about the expression “get going.” And we have a song of the week, since it’s Thursday.

Sphere: the high-tech place to see a concert

Close your eyes and think of a modern building. I’m no mind reader, but I bet you’re thinking about something with straight lines, right angles, and sleek glass on the outside.

But if you’ve been to Las Vegas recently, you might have a different picture in your mind. That’s because the newest building in Las Vegas is a sphere. It’s the largest spherical building in the world, and it cost over $2 billion to build. Picture a globe, with the bottom sliced off. The name of the building is simply, “Sphere.”

Sphere is a one-of-a-kind entertainment facility, which will host concerts and films specifically designed for its unique structure. Inside, it’s a multi-sensory experience. There are about 18,000 seats, set up for concerts and shows. The seats don’t circle the interior; rather, the seats are aligned on one side, with the stage on the other side.

There’s an enormous, 15,000 square-meter 16K LED screen that wraps around above the stage, filling the viewer’s field of vision. The curved, 270-degree screen is the first 16K LED screen in the world; in other words , it’s the highest-resolution, clearest screen ever made.

Behind those screens are powerful speakers, over 1,600 of them; there are even speakers beneath the floors. That’s not all. Ten thousand seats have haptic technology; that means your seat can move.

So if you’re watching a show with a rocket launch, you’ll be able to feel your seat vibrate. And producers also plan to use scent, wind, and temperature to complete the multi-sensory experience.

Sphere is just getting going . It opened in September this year with a U2 concert. The Irish band will play 36 shows there, through March next year. Sphere has also hosted just one film. And for good reason. It’s not easy to make a film designed to be shown on such a large screen, and with such all-encompassing dimensions.

Sphere Entertainment Co. is a stand-alone company, whose whole business is to own and operate Sphere, and to produce content for it. The company owns a special production and post-production facility in California, where producers can work with a miniature replica, about one-third the size of the original, to produce content for this unique venue.

Now if all this sounds impressive, I haven’t even told you about the most striking part: the exterior.

Sphere is a huge, well, spherical building right off the Las Vegas Strip. And you can see it from all over the entertainment district; you can see it from the air as you fly in. And the exterior of the building is completely covered in LED screens. The exterior screens cover 54,000 square meters. That’s the size of three large Walmart stores.

When I was in Las Vegas in July, the building had still not opened, but the exterior screens were working. They were advertising a new basketball tournament, and the exterior of the building looked like a basketball. The images move, like on any screen, so the ball looked like it was spinning. You could clearly see the little pebbles and the lines on the ball. Moving words and video completed the one-of-a-kind look from the outside.

Since then, it has shown a football helmet, the surface of Mars, an eyeball, the moon, and other designs.

The main activity inside would be concerts and films. But the company said it can also host boxing matches, mixed-martial arts competitions, and e-sports. I’m not into watching e-sports, but I bet this would be really fun place to watch e-sports. The company already has plans to build a second Sphere in London and it says it will open others around the world.

If you want to know what it looks like, check out JR’s e-mail from this morning. If you don’t get the e-mails , or if you’re listening to this much later, then you can see the picture at PlainEnglish.com/631. The picture I chose is the one of Mars.

It really is stunning—I didn’t even know about the Sphere when I went to Las Vegas in July, and then I saw this enormous basketball light up. And I said—wait, is that a building? And then that’s when I learned all about it.

So, PlainEnglish.com/631 to see the picture—and while you’re there, why not check out the transcripts, too?

JR’s song of the week

JR knew I was going to do an episode about Sphere. How did he know? Because he suggested the topic. This was JR’s idea. So he picked a U2 song, since U2 was the first performer at Sphere. The song of the week is “With or Without You.”

One of the lines is, “I can’t live with or without you.” I saw U2 in concert, years ago, in Washington, D.C. And I would see them again. Tickets start at $140, which, honestly considering concert prices, seems pretty reasonable to me, if you can get your hands on one. They are there until March.

All right, this is an easy one. “Get going.”