Pollstar Live! Panel Preview: Fireside Chat, James Dolan & Tim Leiweke Discuss Sphere

Speakers
James L. Dolan | Sphere Entertainment Co.
Tim Leiweke | Oak View Group

What Jim Dolan has accomplished in the last year as Executive Chairman & CEO of Sphere Entertainment Company is monumental, historic and just plain jaw-dropping. He did no less than dream-up, plan, finance, build and successfully bring to market a new technologically enhanced class of venue never before seen at an estimated cost of $2.4 billion. In its wake, are new levels of fan experience, limitless artistic applications and a global and cultural impact that has inextricably altered the live industry.

“Everything tells us that it’s going to be very impactful and that it’s going to create a never before experience for all of our customers.” Dolan said in May, well before Sphere’s September opening. “We expect it to become talked about quite a bit.” Mission accomplished and then some.

Sphere will be featured prominently in two massive live event tentpoles this week and next: On Feb. 4, U2 will perform during the Grammys broadcast with a live feed the new Las Vegas landmark; and CBS Sports will use the Sphere during its Feb. 11 telecast of Super Bowl LVIII, just down the Strip at Allegiant Stadium. In only four months, Sphere’s had a major impact on Pollstar’s charts with U2’s “UV: Achtung Baby Live At The Sphere” coming at No. 20 on the 2023 Year-End Top 200 Worldwide Tours (and No. 13 on the North American Top 200 chart), bringing in nearly $110 million and selling more than 280,000 tickets on 17 shows with an average of gross of $6.45 million. As for bringing in one of the all-time most daring and innovative acts, Dolan told Pollstar he couldn’t “think of anybody better than U2 to be the first to undertake that challenge.”

Noting how perfectly the band fit into the opening of Sphere, Dolan joked that, “Sometimes I’m not sure whether we picked them, or they picked us.”

The construction of Sphere and the integration of its audio, video and sensory technologies resulted in dozens of new patents, that included the Big Sky Camera, used to film Darren Aronofsky’s groundbreaking (literally) film “Postcard From Earth” as well as sound dampening technology that NASA is reportedly using and wide adaption of the mind-blowing Holoplot audio, a beam-forming sound technology also used at MSG’s Beacon Theatre.

Talk about “positive disruption,” those words also happen to be Tim Leiweke’s mantra, guiding principle and business philosophy at the core of his company Oak View Group (Pollstar’s parent company). There has been no more dynamic, important and successful business in the venue, sports and entertainment sector in the past seven years than OVG, which builds, manages, advises and advocates for venues in ways never before seen, helping to make the live industry significantly better for all.

Who better than Leiweke to sit down with Dolan, two wildly successful leaders, entrepreneurs and builders in the live business who have brought positive disruption to this industry in substantial and complementary ways. Expect an informative, dynamic and high-octane conversation delving into Dolan’s vision for Sphere, how it went from dream to flawless execution, his team, technology adaption and integration, U2, Darren Aronofsky and what lies ahead for a building that has completely changed the live conversation.