Does Las Vegas’s Sphere reveal the future of concerts?

livemint.com:

Las Vegas strip, is a giant, wide-eyed emoji. Sometimes it is an enormous, hyperrealistic eyeball, a basketball or a whorl of flames. The Sphere, a remarkable new concert venue, is 366 feet (110 metres) tall and 516 wide; an LED screen spanning almost 600,000 square feet covers the exterior.

Inside, enveloping the 17,500 seats, is another vast, ultra-high-resolution screen. This pleasuredome offers an experience unlike any other. It also raises questions about the future of live entertainment.

The high-tech arena was opened in September by U2, who remain in residence until March. The Irish band has a history of innovative concert design as well as corporate ventures, including a long partnership with Apple. Perhaps just as important, U2 is loved by middle-aged rock fans, who form the bulk of concertgoers in America and might shell out for a ticket.

(Prices start at $140 and go up to $1,500.) A celebration of “Achtung Baby", an album released in 1991, U2’s show is an overwhelming phantasmagoria. The band plays on a stage shaped like a turntable while work by artists including Es Devlin and John Gerrard appears on the vaulting screen. During “Even Better Than the Real Thing", there are animations of slot machines and Elvis kitsch.

For “Where the Streets Have No Name", the crowd is transported into the blinding daylight of the high desert. During “With Or Without You" the ceiling teems with images of endangered local species such as the leaf-nosed bat. “It’s a show that’s about the venue that it’s in," says Willie Williams, U2’s longtime production designer.