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The U.K.'s largest concert venue will feature 360-degree sound, and everything else

Ball-In

The U.K.'s largest concert venue will feature 360-degree sound, and everything else

The MSG Sphere London will be slightly shorter than it is wide, and will include four new bridges to the site. (Courtesy The Madison Square Garden Company)

The Madison Square Garden Company (MSG) has revealed renderings and details of its Populous-designed MSG Sphere London, a massive, well, sphere set to sprout up in London. Similar to the forthcoming MSG sphere planned for Las Vegas, the London Sphere, if approved, would be covered in high-tech LED screens both inside and out, so that the event inside can be seen up to 500 feet away.

The developer has selected a 4.7-acre site in Stratford, east London, according to The Guardian, close to the site of the 2012 Olympics Park. The 300-foot-tall, 400-foot-wide dome will hold around 17,500 seated guests and 21,500 seated and standing visitors, which would make it, if built as planned, the largest concert space in the entire United Kingdom.

A sphere with a singer projected on it
The exterior of the building will be able to display performances as well as ads visible up to 500 feet away. (Courtesy The Madison Square Garden Company)

Inside, stadium seating will face a central stage, and a massive LED screen will clad the Sphere’s interior to augment the performance. Other than concerts, MSG has suggested that the venue might be used to host everything from award shows to esport competitions—all events that would benefit from an arena-spanning digital backdrop. The Sphere will also hold retail, a café, a 450-person restaurant and club, and a 1,500-person-capacity black box-type venue for local and emerging artists to perform in.

Rendering of the Earth projected on a sphere.
The exterior’s 360-degree virtual “skin” could also display ambient graphics. (Courtesy The Madison Square Garden Company)

Plans for the MSG Sphere London were submitted to the City of London on March 26, though London Mayor Sadiq Khan had already voiced his approval for the project when it was first revealed last February. If the scheme is approved, construction would take three years, and MSG expects that the entertainment dome could be completed by 2022. However, Khan’s approval doesn’t mean the project will face smooth sailing, as local residents have argued that up to 1,400 new housing units could be built on the site instead.

Cross-section of a dome-shaped building
Inside the MSG Sphere London (Courtesy The Madison Square Garden Company)

Across the pond, construction on the Las Vegas Sphere is well underway, and the venue is expected to open in 2021. The 18,000-seat arena will feature high-tech perks such as speedy internet at every seat, and “planar audio waves”—concentrated, targeted sound—bounced directly to each guest courtesy the German company Holoplot.


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