First Of Three Cosm Attractions Rolls Out

HALF DOME: The entire operation at Cosm’s Hollywood Park installation, the first of three being rolled out by the company, is run in-house. (James Zoltak/VN Staff)

New immersive experience has a sports bent

INGLEWOOD, California — Turn an 87-foot LED dome on its side, project high-definition video and supply impeccable sound, then face it with a multi-level, 2,000-capacity audience and top it all off with high-end food and beverages and what you’ve got is Cosm, an immersive experience that opened in Hollywood Park this summer.

Some have described the venue as a mini-Sphere, after the Las Vegas marvel that’s a magnitude larger than Cosm, but Corey Breton, Cosm’s head of venues, describes it as its own animal, one that aims to satisfy growing demand for ever-more immersive experiences, be they live, simulcast or theatrical.

“I think it’s the comparison that people can relate to, because they know what the Sphere is,” Breton said. “What I would say is the Sphere is focused around live entertainment with a backdrop — the musicians are live, and they’re using the Sphere content and backdrop as a way to accelerate the experience, where we are focused on our media rights deals and democratizing access.”

Using UFC 305 as an example, not many people can get to Perth, Australia, to see the event live, Breton said.

“We’re trying to bring Australia, bring Perth, bring UFC 305 to people in cities like Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta,” he said. “I think the access that we’re trying to create is probably what differentiates us, also. It’s a very intimate nature, because you’re only looking at 2,000 capacity. So some people say, ‘Are you a restaurant? Are you a venue?’ We say, ‘Neither, we’re Cosm.’ Because I think our hospitality can level up above and beyond. That’s the major differentiator for us.”

The average ticket price for a Cosm event is $35, Breton said. The entire operation is run in-house.

“The tech stack is all us. We’re literally bending the steel for the dome through a company subsidiary. We’re producing the LED content and then also sending that through our production team,” he said. “We have our own camera crews that go to the physical sites for games, matches. All of that is in-house and then everything you see, from the security guards to the fan ambassadors to our food and beverages, all in house as well.”

One of the companies in that tech stack is Evans & Sutherland, a once publicly traded outfit known for simulation tech used in planetariums, amusement attractions and by the U.S. military that Cosm purchased in 2019, about the time the concept to build Cosm “sprouted and people started drawing, putting things together on napkins,” according to Breton.

“Ideally, and you can look at our first location in LA, we’re stadium adjacent,” Breton explained. “We work with the Hollywood Park District. We work with the prompting development team to produce the pad, and then we build on top of that. Typically, we’re leasing back from the developer in the the entertainment district. In Dallas, it’s a little bit more unique because we’re in an entertainment district. We’re adjacent to Nebraska Furniture Mart, which draws 12 million people a year.”

The Dallas location is due to open Aug. 31.

The opening of Cosm has been a hit with English Premier League fans in the area, Breton said.

“Colin Cowherd (Fox Sports personality) sent out like one tweet for the first regular season EPL match that we had on Friday, a Manchester United match, and next thing you know, all of our EPL matches (are well attended,)” Breton said. “People felt like they were in the stadium. They felt like they were transported there and immediately some folks in the comments were like, ‘Oh, my kid actually asked to go down on the pitch after the match.’ Talk about this shared reality ability, the transport of nature of what we’re doing.”

The space has huge utility. Three events can be showcased in a single day, he said.

“We’re active 365 days a year, seven days a week, and we haven’t even hit prime time sports season with NFL, college football or NBA or NHL. So, from that lens, the way we’re going to be able to activate the space will only increase.”

Cosm has an NBA league deal, its first.

“The remaining deals are actually with the broadcast partners. We have ESPN, NBC Sports, Fox Sports, and then there is TNT sports,” Breton said. “If you think through all those partners, the access that we have to all the different events, we basically have 4,000 hours worth of programming that we can put into the facility, and that’s on top of the arts and entertainment, which has really done really well.”

Cosm is available for private events, but that’s not a major business segment for the venue. The LA28 Olympics organization and ALSD had recent “takeovers” at Cosm.

“The event side of the business follows everything else we’re doing,” Breton said. “LA 28 is a great example. It was a Sunday afternoon. It was an open slot from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. They rented out the space from us, a full venue takeover. We produced specific content in the venue to be displayed. It literally transported them to Paris. And same thing for Association of Luxury Suite Directors. We kind of did that full venue takeover. Yes, we’re open to it, but we’ll also be very selective to make sure it doesn’t impact our traditional flow.”

Cosm Studios producing content specific to the dome infrastructure.

Artists working on content are “looking at the dimensions and producing content to feed directly into to our dome atmosphere,” Breton said.