The Sphere

While the sphere is more modern, and features the very hyped exterior LED screen, the concept of a sphere with a cinema screen wrapped inside it is quite old.

30 years ago, la geode already existed in Paris : https://www.lageode.fr/

I got good memories of this as a kid, and if you are in the area, it's definitely a must-do in the city. Especially since it's attached to one of the most fun science museums you'll get to visit with a lot of interactive bits.

I do want to get into the sphere to experience what 3 decades of progress have given us.

A friend of mine has seen several Phish and Dead concerts there, and the videos they showed me are amazing.

Dead & Co. at the Sphere was an unforgettable life experience. So much creativity in what they did with the visuals to honor the history of the band, its San Francisco roots, and the canvas the Sphere gave them. I'm going back in August!

Saw Dead from the floor, which is very close to the screen. There was some distortion, but it was still pretty immersive and worked reasonably well for the surround shots/sequences, though I did have to swivel and look around behind me. One of the nice things about a sphere, of course, is that there’s always a fairly undistorted view across from you. The Wikipedia article has a shot from a very low+side seat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_%28venue%29#Opening

The sound system + sphere geometry is also interesting for similar reasons, you get good sound no matter where you sit. I even brought ear plugs because concerts are always too loud, but didn’t need them in the Sphere show, they seemed to use their ability to achieve uniform coverage to set the volume at loud enoug but non-ear-destroying levels. (The WP article also talks about the sound system.)

> my guess is that most viewers are 20m from the screen

The point being made in context here is valid, about depth perception and immersion, but picking nits, to me this guess doesn’t feel right at all in terms of describing the viewing experience. The main viewing area is center front, opposite from the “good” seats in the middle, and there’s nothing within 20m of it, or even 50m I’d speculate. The good seats are probably 80m away, and most of the rest are further. No matter where you sit, the undistorted view is across from you, you tend to look away from the very closest part of the screen. So people on the sides might be close to their side of the screen, but are primarily looking at the stuff across from them and in the center front. The parts that are within 20m are designed to be periphery no matter where you are. Except for the floor, where I might have been within 20m, but I was looking at the band 20m away, and only looking at the screen for stuff much further.