Sphere Entertainment Co. has announced plans to develop a new Sphere venue at National Harbor in Maryland, which would become the second Sphere location in the US and the first to use the company’s smaller-scale venue design.
Building on the success of the Las Vegas Sphere, plans have been unveiled to build a new, smaller-scale Sphere at National Harbor, Maryland. The project is being developed in partnership with the State of Maryland, Prince George’s County, and Peterson Companies. It remains subject to the usual list of final agreements, approvals, and the receipt of roughly $200 million in state and local incentives.
First Smaller-Scale Sphere Design
The proposed venue would have a seating capacity of around 6000, making it roughly a third of the capacity of the existing Sphere in Las Vegas. Despite the reduced size, Sphere Entertainment says the venue will retain the company’s core technology platform. Plans at the moment include an exterior Exosphere LED display alongside a 16K x 16K interior LED display — the same resolution but presumably smaller than the 160,000 square foot (14,900 sq m) Vegas screen, which is currently ranked as the top-grossing venue worldwide. The venue would also incorporate Sphere Immersive Sound, haptic seating, and 4D environmental effects.
For those of us still miffed about Sphere London never happening, the smaller-format design is intended to support expansion into a wider range of global markets. There’s already a planned venue in Abu Dhabi, and the company says it has also designed plans for various sized Spheres for different locations around the world.
As for the National Harbor site, it’s located approximately 15 minutes from Washington, DC, and already attracts more than 15 million visitors annually. Sphere says the project would support around 2500 jobs during construction and approximately 4750 jobs once operational. Annual economic impact is projected to exceed $1 billion. Which we reckon means that a London Sphere (Or a Belfast one come to that. Ed.) is an absolute no-brainer for the future.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.redsharknews.com ’
