Latest news with #SphereEntertainmentCo
Business Wire
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Business Wire
LIONS, TIGERS, AND SCORES – OH MY! THE ICONIC SOUNDS OF OZ COME TO SPHERE
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE: SPHR) announced today new details around the sound, score and infrasound haptic seats for The Wizard of Oz at Sphere, a fully immersive experience that will make audiences feel like they have stepped inside the film. Sphere Studios is leveraging Sphere's audio technologies, along with newly discovered archival material, to create an experience that remains true to the filmmakers' intent while layering in technologies that bring it new life. 'There's Dorothy and 'Over the Rainbow' as you heard them before, and there will be Dorothy and 'Over the Rainbow' as you hear them now, with the film's classic music taking on new clarity and immersion through Sphere Immersive Sound,' said Carolyn Blackwood, Head of Sphere Studios. ' The Wizard of Oz at Sphere, heard and felt through our cutting-edge technologies, will create a new emotional connection to The Wizard of Oz that is only possible at Sphere.' To take advantage of Sphere Immersive Sound's 167,000 programmable speakers, and ability to direct sound anywhere in the venue, the original film's mono score was re-recorded to take on new clarity via Sphere Immersive Sound, while preserving the casts' vocal performances. The mono audio had to first be separated into individual stems of vocals, dialogue, and sound effects. This process, a collaboration between Sphere Studios and Warner Bros. Post Production Creative Services, used advanced audio technologies to create the individual components without distortion or artifact. Inside Sphere, the stems are being layered together to create a sound mix that reveals a depth and clarity unheard in the 1939 film. At Sphere, our respect for this Academy Award-winning music extended to re-recording the score on the same scoring stage as the 1930s original – retaining the same acoustic environment. To further maintain the integrity of the original score, the re-recorded score features more than 80 musicians playing in the 1930s style of film music, including techniques such as pizzicato and vibrato that were standard for the era, but are less common in modern scores. Additionally, an ocarina, a small wind instrument used during the original recording session of 'If I Only Had a Brain,' was also used for The Wizard of Oz at Sphere recording, having been passed down through generations of musicians. While re-recording the score, each section of the orchestra was also recorded individually with state-of-the-art miking. Coupled with Sphere Immersive Sound's directional capabilities and the vocal and sound effect stems, it will seem as though sound travels around the venue. For example, as the Tin Man tilts back and forth during his number, the isolated sound of the strings will also oscillate to emphasize his movement in visual and sonic unison. 'We approached the recording and mixing process for The Wizard of Oz at Sphere with a deep reverence for the original music, resulting in a breathtaking blend of legacy and innovation,' said Julianne Jordan, Grammy Award-winning music supervisor of The Wizard of Oz at Sphere. 'Sphere Immersive Sound offers opportunities for sound mixing that go well beyond a traditional theater, and this score will now be heard and felt with a level of clarity and immersion that was previously impossible.' To enhance the immersion in The Wizard of Oz at Sphere, Sphere's infrasound and haptic seat technology is being used for the first time to not only create vibrations, but also emit tones that emphasize moments in the film experience. For example, when the characters enter the haunted forest, an eerie tone will emanate from the seats, bringing the audience into the foursome's perspective and imposing the same ominous feeling. 'This is the first time sound technology has been used in this way in any venue,' said Paul Freeman, Vice President and Principal Audio Artist, Sphere Studios. 'We developed a physical way of delivering sound that allows us to not only vibrate the seats, but also place tone in them that puts you in the film – audiences will literally feel what they are hearing.' The vibrations, infrasound, and Sphere Immersive Sound will come together for maximum impact during key moments of The Wizard of Oz at Sphere. When the main characters visit the Wizard in his throne room, his voice will boom throughout the venue, complemented by tremors and low frequency sounds from the seats. Intentional reverberations will be created within the venue to completely immerse the audience in sound – and anticipation. The Wizard of Oz at Sphere will transport audiences, making them feel like they are in Oz traveling down the yellow brick road alongside Dorothy and her friends on an adventure to the Emerald City. The original film, shot for a 4:3 movie screen in the 1930s, will now fill Sphere's 160,000 sq. ft. interior display plane, which wraps up, over and around the audience to create a fully immersive visual environment. The Wizard of Oz at Sphere will utilize environmental effects and custom scents to make audiences feel as if they are part of the movie and have landed in Kansas and Oz. The sound creative team for The Wizard of Oz at Sphere includes Grammy Award-nominated music producer/sound designer Paul Freeman (Spies); Grammy Award-winning music supervisor Julianne Jordan (A Star Is Born); Academy Award-nominated composer David Newman (Anastasia); and Academy Award-winning sound engineer Shawn Murphy (Jurassic Park). And from Warner Bros. Post Production Creative Services: sound engineer Tony Pilkington (Sinners); Academy Award-winning supervising sound editor/sound designer Richard King (Dune: Part Two); and Cinema Audio Society-nominated re-recording mixer Tim LeBlanc (Superman). The Wizard of Oz at Sphere opens August 28, 2025, with multiple showtimes daily. Tickets start at $104 and are on sale now at For groups of nine or more, please contact 725-258-7775 or groups@ For suites, please contact 725-258-6743 or suites@ Hotel packages are available for a limited time exclusively through The Venetian Resort Las Vegas, the resort connected to Sphere. For more information, visit or call 866-682-6155. For press assets related to sound, please click here. For an embeddable YouTube link to the sound video, please click here. For the complete The Wizard of Oz at Sphere EPK, please click here. About Sphere Immersive Sound Sphere Immersive Sound was specifically developed for Sphere's curved interior. The system includes 167,000 individually amplified loudspeaker drivers. The system's 3D audio-beamforming technology creates unique, highly controlled soundwaves, ensuring that levels and quality remain consistent from point of origin to destination. The system also utilizes wave field synthesis, a spatial audio rendering technique that leverages virtual acoustic environments, allowing sound designers to create a virtual point of origin, which can then be placed in a precise spatial location in the venue. About Sphere Sphere is a next-generation entertainment medium that is redefining the future of live entertainment. A venue where the foremost artists, creators, and technologists create extraordinary experiences that bring storytelling to a new level and take audiences to places both real and imagined. The venue hosts original Sphere Experiences from leading Hollywood directors; concerts and residencies from the world's biggest artists; and premier marquee events. The first Sphere venue opened in Las Vegas in September 2023, and is a new Las Vegas landmark, powered by cutting-edge technologies that ignite the senses and enable audiences to share experiences at a never-before-seen scale. More information is available at
Skift
08-05-2025
- Business
- Skift
Sphere Entertainment's Future Venues: Smaller, Cheaper, Faster
James Dolan's Sphere Entertainment Co. posted yet another three months of losses. Growth is still his number one goal, so he's going to make future Spheres smaller and cheaper. Sphere Entertainment Co. has said it will soon roll out a new global development plan that focuses on smaller and cheaper venues so it can more easily expand. "We're definitely talking worldwide about Sphere," said Chairman and CEO James Dolan on Thursday's Q1 earnings call. "But we do have another initiative that I think is very important that we are undertaking this year. We're right in the middle of designing a smaller Sphere deployable in markets inside and out of the U.S. The strategy there is to build faster, cheaper, and have an ROI that makes investors enthusiastic." "I expect by the end of the year, I expect we'll be talking about that smaller Sphere product as another way of expanding the business, as well as continuing to build [larger] Spheres like in Abu Dhabi and other markets." No other markets have been named yet beyond Vegas and Abu Dhabi, but Skift looked at the company's trademark filings last October, which included IPs for Oman and Qatar. For the quarter, the Sphere segment of the Sphere Entertainment business had revenue of $157.5 million, an 8% decline. The operating loss was $93.8 million. One bright spot was events, where revenue jumped $25.6 million, with the Vegas venue offering 10 more shows than in the prior year's quarter. "When you look at the company and the development, it's all about growth," said Dolan. "It's all about our ability to take what we see as a great product and expand it across the globe. For questions on how we use our capital, it's done primarily towards growth so we can make the business bigger and the goals we have for it, versus necessarily returning capital to shareholders." "I take a look at this new project of building a smaller sphere and it's a tremendous opportunity." The company's Sphere in Las Vegas cost an estimated $2.3 billion to construct and has a seating capacity of 20,000. A second Sphere in Abu Dhabi (after a failed attempt in London) is confirmed to be a similar size to its Sin City counterpart, but the price tag and opening date have yet to be revealed.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Beyoncé Replaces Sphere With Allegiant Stadium in Cowboy Carter Tour Visuals After Cease-and-Desist
After receiving a cease-and-desist from the owner of Las Vegas' Sphere, Beyoncé has replaced the venue with another Nevada landmark in her Cowboy Carter Tour visuals. Days after Billboard confirmed that Sphere Entertainment Co. CEO James Dolan's attorneys had sent a letter to the superstar's Parkwood Entertainment demanding that Bey remove a reference to the Sphere in a video that plays during one of her show's interludes, fans at the tour's third night in Los Angeles Sunday (May 4) were the first to see that she had done just that. In lieu of a ginormous Bey bending down to pick up the iconic spherical concert space — as was depicted in the original visual dubbed 'Attack of the 400 Foot Cowboy' — she now reaches for Allegiant Stadium, seemingly edited overtop of where the Sphere was initially. More from Billboard Beyoncé Hit With Cease-and-Desist from Sphere Owner Over 'Cowboy Carter' Concert Footage Ghost Earns First No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 With 'Skeletá' Fans Choose Maroon 5 and LISA's 'Priceless' as This Week's Favorite New Music The following morning, Parkwood posted the updated footage on Instagram, writing, 'What happens in Vegas starts with a BANG.' 'Bey really said 'you want petty? here's petty,'' one fan commented on the post. Another person wrote with a cry-laugh emoji, 'Oh the shade.' Sunday's show came two nights after the New York Post first reported that Dolan's company had sent Bey's team the cease-and-desist, alleging that 'the prominent appearance and manipulation of SEG's Sphere™ venue in the video [had been] unauthorized.' In addition to accusing the 35-time Grammy winner of showcasing the Sphere without permission, the letter also reportedly criticized the visual for supposedly misleading fans by creating 'significant speculation that Beyoncé will end her tour with a Sphere residency,' despite the fact that the Cowboy Carter trek is actually scheduled to end with two shows at Allegiant in July. Billboard previously reached out to reps for Beyoncé and tour promoter Live Nation, but did not hear back. Prior to the change, the Sphere had been just one of several global landmarks included in the visual. Featuring Bey modeling several glamorous looks and towering over various cities worldwide, the 'Texas Hold 'Em' singer also interacted with the Statue of Liberty in New York City, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., in the interlude. Following two more nights at SoFi Stadium in L.A. this week, Bey is set to bring the tour supporting Billboard 200-topping album Cowboy Carter to Chicago and East Rutherford, N.J., before heading overseas for performances in London and Paris. In late June, she'll circle back to the states for shows in Texas, Maryland and Georgia before closing out with her Nevada performances. See Bey's updated, Sphere-less tour visual below. Best of Billboard Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1 Janet Jackson's Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits H.E.R. & Chris Brown 'Come Through' to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sphere Entertainment Co. (SPHR): Among the Best Stocks to Buy According to John W. Rogers of Ariel Investments
We recently compiled a list of the 10 Best Stocks to Buy According to John W. Rogers of Ariel Investments. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE:SPHR) stands against John W. Rogers' other stock picks. John W. Rogers Jr. is a prominent American investor and hedge fund manager who serves as the chairman, CEO, and CIO of . Rogers graduated from Princeton University in 1980 and spent two and a half years as a stock broker at William Blair. Three years later, he founded Ariel Investments, the first Black-owned mutual fund company in the United States, with $200,000 supported by family and friends. Howard University would be Ariel Investments' initial customer, with the firm receiving $100,000 to manage its endowment. The next year, the city of Chicago granted Ariel $1 million to operate a pension plan. By 2009, Ariel Investments was managing $3.3 billion in assets, which has since increased to a staggering $12.9 billion. Notably, the investor's flagship Ariel Fund's faced one of its first hurdles back on October 19, 1987, the day of the crash known as Black Monday. The next major test came after the dot-com crisis in 2000, with the Ariel Fund rebounding strongly, returning 29% that year and 14% in 2001. During the 2008 financial crisis, Rogers' investments in equities, such as real estate investment firm CBRE Group and newspaper publisher Gannett, caused the fund to lose 48% before returning 63% in 2009. Rogers appreciates patience as he looks for companies that he believes will reach their full potential in a set period of years. This strategy of scooping up value stocks, pioneered by famed investors Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham, involves buying stocks whose worth may be undervalued by the market. Speaking on a Bloomberg Invest Conference, the investor stated that market enthusiasts might get overly focused on short-term trends, and those prepared to look three or five years ahead may still uncover opportunities. Ariel Investments remains steadfast in its belief of value investing, even within the current market climate. This confidence in its strategy was reaffirmed in the fund's Q1 2025 Investor Letter. Here is what Ariel Fund had to say: Most major U.S. indices ended the first quarter of 2025 in the red, with investors fleeing to safety as optimism for another year of U.S. outperformance driven by economic momentum and the new administration's pro-business stance was quickly replaced by tariff fears and policy uncertainty. The Magnificent Seven, which drove most of the markets gains over the last three years, led the decline, falling nearly -15%. Value bested growth and large caps held up better than their small cap brethren. International equity markets, led by Europe and China, surged—delivering their strongest quarterly outperformance versus the U.S. in 15 years. Meanwhile, deteriorating confidence and apprehension about a global trade war is fueling recession fears. While Wall Street sits on edge and markets remain erratic, we are actively leaning into the volatility by judiciously acquiring the downtrodden shares of quality companies whose value should be realized over the long term. For this list, we picked stocks from Ariel Investments' 13F portfolio as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2024. These equities are also popular among elite hedge funds. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (). Stagehands setting up the equipment for a live entertainment event. Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE:SPHR) is an American entertainment business that produces and hosts live events. It primarily operates in two areas: Sphere and MSG Networks. On April 9, Guggenheim analysts maintained a Buy rating on Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE:SPHR), with a price target of $69. The firm's analysts upgraded their model for SPHR, predicting a more profitable second half of the year. The expected rise in profitability stems from three important factors, which include the debut of a new Sphere Experience show, the anticipated timing of new sponsorship deals, and ongoing efforts to enhance SG&A cost reductions. Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE:SPHR)'s fourth quarter results came in mixed, with revenue crossing expectations at $308.3 million, compared to a prediction of $289.41 million, despite a 1.9% year-over-year fall. However, the company posted a larger-than-expected loss of -$3.49 per share, compared to analysts' projections of -$2.37 per share. Sphere Entertainment's Las Vegas venue experienced a 1% rise in revenue to $169 million, although it had an adjusted operating loss of $0.8 million, compared to the prior year's adjusted operating income of $14.1 million. Meanwhile, the MSG Networks segment's revenue fell 5% to $139.3 million, owing to an 11.5% loss in total subscribers. Overall SPHR ranks 9th on our list of John W. Rogers' stock picks. While we acknowledge the potential for SPHR as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than SPHR but trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this . READ NEXT: and . Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at . Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sphere Entertainment Co. (SPHR) Traded Lower Due to Profit Taking
Ariel Investments, an investment management company, released its 'Ariel Fund' first-quarter 2025 investor letter. A copy of the letter can be downloaded here. In the first quarter of 2025, the majority of the main U.S. indices saw a decline. Even though Wall Street is tense and markets are still volatile, the firm is taking advantage of the turbulence by carefully purchasing the undervalued stock of quality companies whose value should be realized over the long term. Against this backdrop, Ariel Fund returned -8.00% in the quarter, lagging both the Russell 2500 Value and Russell 2000 Value indices, which returned -5.83% and -7.74%. For more information on the fund's top picks in 2025, please check its top five holdings. In its first-quarter 2025 investor letter, Ariel Fund highlighted stocks such as Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE:SPHR). Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE:SPHR) is a US-based live entertainment and media company. Sphere Entertainment Co.'s (NYSE:SPHR) one-month return was -26.49%, and its shares lost 39.59% of their value over the last 52 weeks. On April 22, 2025, Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE:SPHR) stock closed at $24.84 per share with a market capitalization of $889.94 million. Ariel Fund stated the following regarding Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE:SPHR) in its Q1 2025 investor letter: "Lastly, shares of live entertainment, media and technology company, Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE:SPHR), came under pressure as some investors took profits on solid earnings performance. In our view, this share price action runs counter to the company's strong business fundamentals. Looking ahead, we expect financial results will continue to ramp up as SPHR scales its concert residencies, secures additional marquee sporting events and reaches higher venue utilization across show types. Advertising, sponsorship and suite revenue should provide additional upside. Meanwhile, international expansion beyond Abu Dhabi remains a priority. In our view, the experiential immersive venue in Las Vegas and its franchise opportunities as well as the company's two regional sports and entertainment networks present a meaningfully underappreciated long-term opportunity." Stagehands setting up the equipment for a live entertainment event. Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE:SPHR) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. Our database shows that 1 hedge fund portfolios held Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE:SPHR) at the end of the fourth quarter, compared to 0 in the third quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE:SPHR) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as NVIDIA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock. In another article, we covered Sphere Entertainment Co. (NYSE:SPHR) and shared the list of best entertainment stocks to buy according to analysts. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2025 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors. READ NEXT: Michael Burry Is Selling These Stocks and A New Dawn Is Coming to US Stocks. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Sign in to access your portfolio
