Sheldon Adelson And Las Vegas Bet On Big Bradbury Ball

Posted: May 25, 2018

Updated: May 25, 2018

If I ask what happens when you stitch 142 IMAX cinema screens onto the inside of a large sphere and plonk it just off the expo site in Las Vegas bet you couldn’t give me an answer, and yet the Sand Corp of Sheldon Adelson and Madison Square Garden are doubling down on this massive engineering and technological project to bring what Ray Bradbury called a “liquid crystal room” in The Veldt from the pages of futuristic science fiction to the skyline of the world’s gambling capital city.

  • Will the MSG Sphere Arena be as amazing as James Dolan says?
  • Does Las Vegas bet to often on bigger rather than different?
  • Is Ray Bradbury rolling in his grave after Dolan’s presentation?
  • Could VR sink the Sphere before it even lights up in 2020?

The publicity is impressively ‘Blade Runner’, the concept a mammoth yet inevitable extension of modern entertainment technology and the city will benefit from both the jobs and tax revenues created. The MSG Sphere Arena due to be open in 2020 will be a high tech venue with a wrap-around screen inside that will seat 18,000 and will be so expensive chairman James Dolan omitted to mention it at all, never a good sign, so as business leaders in Las Vegas bet on a continued diversification, will it work?

Certainly few large scale concert venues fail and as US gambling laws continue to liberalize there’s an ever growing competition for clientele that can be significantly enhanced by additional draws to your location, however Dolan comparing this with Ray Bradbury’s holodeck style room seemed to be over egging the pudding a little, and with sites like Bovada chipping away at their core business, and a history of closure and renewal, that the citizens of Las Vegas bet on more bricks and mortar is a bit odd.

Madison Square Garden To Become A Sphere?

One of the greatest problems is that whilst this massive dome will project wrap-around images inside that will by themselves be an amazing experience, and the exterior (we’re told) will be full programmable, this may yet see itself quickly made obsolete by emergent technologies. This is particularly true of VR why go to Las Vegas bet and come home when you can stay home and still bet in a virtual Las Vegas? Sites like Bovada will soon provide this sort of immersive experience.

And alas the same is true of concerts. With increasingly problematic security concerns the dawning of a functional (and practical) Virtual Reality technology would quickly level both cinema and concert attendances. Safer, more hygienic and markedly cheaper this will drain the travel market regardless of attractions at any given location. If you like to bet on sports in the US you can be there to watch the race, see the concert, hit the gaming floors and place that hallowed Las Vegas bet at Bovada instead.

Las Vegas Bet On Balls, You Can Bet On Bovada

Perhaps fortunately for the Sands Corp, Sheldon Adelson, and Mr Dolan the VR evolutionary process has been a stuttering one at best and if they can get the MSG Sphere up and running as quickly as they say they can you can expect a lot of high profile concerts and presentations using it’s technology to the zenith of what is possible quite quickly. The likes of Lady Gaga will jump at the chance. However if you’re in the US gambling news of this project won’t be without it’s teething problems either, think again.

Including Beamforming Audio and the “largest and highest resolution LED screen on Earth” this is not a project destined to be care or hassle free and indeed a sister location due for a similar venue in London will probably benefit from the errors learned from in America. No one in Las Vegas bet on it losing its pseudo monopoly on gambling, but it did, and now it is diversifying as fast as possible to retain it’s resort of choice status, but this could just be a bunch of balls and nothing more.

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