Sphere at Venetian to Debut Exterior Screen on July 4

By Scott Roeben, on June 30 2023
3 min read 13 comments
Las Vegas

The Sphere at Venetian has been testing its exterior screen for months, and it seems the venue will debut its first official exterior light show on July 4, 2023.

The Independence Day debut hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, but give it a minute. For us, waiting for news releases is as pointless as, well, a sphere.

The $2.2 billion Sphere (no takers on naming rights yet) hasn’t officially opened yet, and to-date we’ve only seen test patterns, but a stunning exterior light show could garner great publicity for the new entertainment venue.

Publicity is the new revenue! Long story.

Vegas is about to get some new eye candy. Source: SphereVegas.

Early word is the July 4 Sphere show will attempt to generate maximum hoopla by complementing the fireworks displays on The Strip that evening. We don’t really understand how all that will work, as the people viewing the fireworks at Caesars Palace or Planet Hollywood or Resorts World won’t be able to see the light show at the Sphere.

So, it seems like if you’re not specifically going to the Sphere for the show, it’s mainly for TV coverage.

There’s not a lot of parking around the Sphere, so we have no idea how all that will work, logistically. We’re confident the Sphere people have it all figured out because they have plenty of bandwidth due to not wasting precious time on creating a business plan.

So far, it’s basically been hiring someone to try and generate $100 million from advertising on the Sphere, booking U2 for 20-plus dates (while giving them 90 percent of the ticket revenue) and showing an original movie for $50 a pop.

We are not making this up.

Still, U2 pops the Sphere’s cherry starting in September if all goes according to plan.

Yes, this baby is creepy, but aren’t they all, really?

The content of the Independence Day Sphere exosphere show (the outside part of the Sphere, the inside is completely covered in video screens, too) is unknown, but we’ll take a wild guess: Fireworks, American flags, a nod to members of the armed services and possibly that imbecile Kid Rock shooting at Bud Light cans.

Other jingoistic symbols that may or may not be available royalty-free: Bald eagles, hot dogs, Lady Liberty, the genocide of indigenous peoples, cowboys (sorry, cowpersons), the Liberty Bell, coal products and deep-fried Mars bars. With almonds.

We honestly can’t wait to see what the Sphere has in store for Independence Day. Few nations have reveled in their victory over a foe for so many years. Why do we insist upon rubbing it in every year? That does not seem like great sportsmanship, but we are not a sports expert.

To make things even more awkward, July 4, 1776 wasn’t when American gained its independence. The war with the British dragged on for years. The Declaration of Independence wasn’t signed that day, either.

The Continental Congress vote in favor of independence was on July 2, 1776. Most members of Congress signed the Declaration of Independence on July 2, but it wasn’t signed by everyone until November 1776.

Anyway, this is all filler, because we don’t have many details about the Sphere’s rumored “premier.”

The time we hear is 8:00 p.m., but nothing has been confirmed. The Sphere’s call center has been alerting Las Vegas casinos about their plans for July 4. We aren’t asking the Sphere directly because we don’t want to draw attention to ourself because they’ll put us in their facial recognition system and we’ll never be able to visit the place if they ever schedule a showing of “Shaun of the Dead.”

Here’s something to watch when the Sphere comes online. Cue the sad trombone. This also means Wynn could reconsider its free parking. We are running out of trombones.

Stay tuned for more details. From the news release. That everyone will be copying and pasting from soon.