MSG Sphere London: Putting Every Guest In The Sweet Spot

MSG – MSG Sphere London Rendering
The venue would be located in Stratford, close to London Stadium

The Madison Square Garden Company is pushing technological boundaries with its plans for its new cutting-edge venue, the Sphere. One of the most exciting features of the immersive experience will be its audio system, which delivers the same audio quality irrespective of seat location.

“In current venues, the sound is unevenly distributed,” said MSG Ventures Chief Executive Officer David Dibble at the venue’s unveiling in London’s Copper Box Arena March 20.

“To do this, we use a modular, steerable audio system that delivers the optional audio mix for every seat in the house simultaneously, putting every guest in the sweet spot,” Dibble explained. “Using state-of-the-art beam-forming technology, audio is directed to specific sections of the venue, at near constant sound pressure levels from point of origin to destination.”

MSG Sphere, New State-Of-The-Art Venue For Las Vegas and London, Unveiled

Wave field synthesis, plane waves, infrasound, near-field steerable arrays and delay vector systems are just some of the technologies that are slated to be deployed in the Sphere. Dibble said the audience would be enveloped in sound.

He wasn’t joking, and guests were able to see for themselves. The Madison Square Garden Company (which also has a joint venture with Irving Azoff, co-founder of the Oak View Group, Pollstar‘s parent company) had flown in and entire Sphere science lab, demonstrating some of the future venue’s features. MSG Ventures’ principal audio systems and acoustics, Erik Hockman, was on site to demo some of the audio capabilities. He said that, because of the ability to control the speakers individually, “I can make every kind of waveform known to mankind—and some that actually aren’t.”

The ability to direct audio beams, for example, could come in handy at events where keynotes are translated for an international audience. Listeners no longer need headsets, they simply need to take a seat in a row allocated to their language. Artists could potentially get rid of monitor systems. Dibble told Pollstar: “In-ears go away. The system will identify you, and your beam will follow you around as you perform.” It’s the audio version of a spotlight.

James Dolan, chairman and CEO of Madison Square Garden Company, said the venue was inspired by “The Veldt,” a science fiction short story, penned by Ray Bradbury in 1951 about a home in the distant future in which the walls of a room have the ability to display real places from the outside world, including the sounds and smells associated with them.

Whether the Sphere is going to simulate smells remains to be seen, but there was a lot else to be experienced with one’s remaining senses: Demos included a virtual reality tour of the future auditorium, infrasound demonstrations and a mini Sphere, which guests could enter to get a sense of the real thing.

The actual Sphere will have a diameter of 120 meters, a height of around 90 meters, and a seating capacity of just over 18,000, Jayne McGivern, MSG Company’s EVP, development and construction, told Pollstar. The site in London will encompass 4.7 acres, compared to 18.9 acres for the Las Vegas project. The different in size is due primarily to the fact that most Londoners will travel to the venue via public transport, which connects well to Stratford, where the Sphere is going to be built.

McGivern, who also developed the O2, explained that some aspects of the building have never been done before. The immersive surface, for example, has to be “absolutely perfect” noting that the total construction time “from when we start on site to opening will be probably about 30 months.”

At the moment, MSG Company is still going through the design and construction phases aiming to submit its planning application by the end of 2018. Once those have been approved, construction can begin.

The vaulted screen within the Sphere will be over 60 meters high and more than 100 meters wide and capable of displaying a resolution of around 16,000 by 16,000 pixels. Said Dolan: “No longer will the audience be looking through a rectangular window, instead they will be immersed in an environment that can be as large as the cosmos, or as small as the inside of a wristwatch.”

“And as your focus moves from one side of the visual plane to the other, so will the sound. You will not only hear the sound, you will feel it. And not just the big sounds, but the sound made by two gears meshing inside your watch. As you travel through the desert, the heat will bake you and emanate from the sun, the rainforest will be humid and the snowstorm cool.”

One of the Sphere’s major design specifications was to get as close to a VR experience without having to wear goggles. The high resolution allows for a true sense of depth without being disorientated.

MSG – MSG Sphere London
The plan is to offer a virtual reality experience without the goggles

Dibble added that, “the vast majority of the technology we’re putting in the Sphere when it’s built does not truly exist today,” at least not at concert venues. “I met with an Italian partner today, they’ve custom-designed a floor actuator for us for the vibrating floors,” he said.

Audience members will be also able to interact with one another as well as with the artists through the MSG Sphere app: finding friends in the venue, voting on set-lists in real-time or engaging in gaming events are just some examples. “Why not have an artist have a number that enables everyone’s display [to become] a pixel on a massive 20,000 person display. We know how to do that.”

MSG Company’s president Andy Lustgarten believes having more venues in a city increases the market size pointing to New York City, where the population is almost the same as London but seven large-scale venues, while London only had two. “In 2012, when New York added its seventh venue [Barclays Center], we saw a 52-percent growth in the concert market,” he said. “The same happened in Los Angeles when we opened The Forum in 2014, the market grew 65 percent. We expect the same thing to happen here.”

Lustgarten told Pollstar, “We have more than two times as many events in New York, a city of the same size. O2 is going to continue to be extremely busy, it’s a fabulous venue. We just think this market’s going to grow up.”

When asked about the security concept of the arena, Lustgarten said: “We’re obsessed with security as an organization. Madison Square Garden is above the busiest transit hub in North America. We focus tremendously on security. We’re the first venue to receive [the SAFETY Act Designation by the Dept. of Homeland Security]. We spend a lot of time thinking about security, and we’re going to be spending a lot of time thinking about security as we continue to invest in venues.”

Lustgarten emphasized that MSG Sphere London will be “an open venue,” and would be working with all promoters. He believes the theater-style circular seating, with all seats facing forward, will offer “better views, better experiences than any other venue in the world.”

MSG – MSG Sphere London
What a Daft Punk concert could look like

Update: Pollstar was originally told that the total, as in non-seated, capacity of the venue would be 22,000, but was later informed that this wasn’t true.