Dear Commons Community,

It’s hard to know which was the bigger act in Las Vegas Friday night: U2 or the Sphere, the gargantuan light-shifting orb they performed inside of.

The rock band’s first performance of their Las Vegas residency was also the christening of the $2.3 billion globe-shaped entertainment venue, which has dazzled onlookers after construction was completed at the Venetian Resort this summer. Coated inside and out with more than a million programmable LED lights, the Sphere has already wowed the Vegas skyline by morphing into a 33-story Christmas snow globe and a giant eyeball.

The U2 concert gave audiences inside and online on TikTok and Youtube their first chance to peek inside the jaw-dropping venue.  By Saturday afternoon, millions of people had watched a  video (see below) showing the band performing .

The Sphere is considered the world’s largest building with such a shape. To get a sense of its scale: The entire surface of its inside screen measures 3.7 acres — about three football fields of digital real estate. The outside surface is substantially larger.

Wow!

Tony

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