Technology / 02.09.18
Why Madison Square Garden Thinks It Has Designed the Venue of the Future
Access Staff
Original article published on Billboard (02/09/18) by Cherie Hu
Madison Square Garden (MSG) CEO James Dolan believes his company supports a vision of tomorrow's event venue that delivers both intangible and tangible content to patrons. The culmination of this vision is a chain of immersive, intelligent venues called MSG Sphere, with the construction of the first such environment due to start in June 2018 in Las Vegas. The plan calls for a 200-foot-tall, 18,000-capacity arena with an equator width of more than 500 feet. The Sphere's exterior will be clad with fully-customizable light-emitting diodes. The interior will feature the world's largest, highest-definition screen, bringing the Sphere's total display surface to 180,000 square feet. Dolan says he wants the unique display capabilities of the MSG Sphere to function as an "open platform" for artists and sponsors to produce wholly new storytelling and visual models around concerts and other events, and "push the definition of what it means to be an educated consumer." The Sphere's unveiling comes on the heels of MSG's buyout of Obscura Digital, a creative studio focused on immersive experiences. Obscura represents the inaugural acquisition of MSG Ventures, a new unit committed to investing in and buying startups across the immersion platform, from in-concert connectivity and audiovisual technology to content distribution across the entirety of the event cycle.
Read the full story on the Billboard website.
Tags: Music , News