Are domes and spheres the future of entertainment?

The top of the Las Vegas Sphere had opened, and mortgage loan officer Danielle Renee , of Washington State, was peering upwards in awe at millions of stars. She was going into space – and the Backstreet Boys were driving.

"Oh my gosh, it was incredible," she says. "I don't know how another show could beat it."

Renee, a decades-long Backstreet Boys fan, went to the Las Vegas Sphere in early February and was wowed both by the band's performance and the visual effects on the giant concave screen that covers a 15,000 sq m portion of the Sphere's interior surface. The night sky, the bands' spaceship, all of it was graphics.

Renee, who has seen the Backstreet Boys more than once before, says "nothing compares" to this new show. "Everyone was dancing, everyone was singing along."

Sphere-style entertainment spaces are becoming more popular. Rival Cosm, for example, is opening dome-like facilities in multiple US cities, where audiences can watch live sports events or films including The Matrix with additional visual effects that envelop the portion of the screen showing the movie.

Proponents say this is the future of entertainment – supposedly more immersive, more experiential.

But audiences have heard that before about, for example, 3D cinema, which has failed to gain significant traction more than once over the years. The challenge is to prove that visually-overwhelming domes can do any better.

The Las Vegas Sphere, which cost a galactic $2.3bn (£1.72bn), has hosted a variety of different shows since it opened in September 2023 – from a new version of The Wizard of Oz, with added visual effects, to a residency by Irish rockers U2. Tickets generally cost at least $100, sometimes much more.

For years,........

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