Sphere, Part 2

 

[Welcome to the second and concluding installment of my report on Sphere Las Vegas, the new high-tech performance venue conceived and built on the Strip by Madison Square Garden.  It took years in the planning and construction, including delays from the COVID shut-down, the supply disruptions, and the inflation surge.  It ended up costing $2.3 billion and opened with the début of a U2 residency on 29 September 2023. 

[Part 1 of “Sphere,” posted on 24 December, covered such topics as the business arrangements for the shifting partnerships that brought the venue to fruition, the architecture and construction of the world’s largest spherical edifice, the reception by Las Vegans and visitors to the city of the concept and the rising structure, and some details regarding visiting Sphere as an entertainment site.

[Part 2 below will cover the tech of Sphere, both exterior and interior, and some of the responses to the structure as a place to see concerts and other events.  As I’m not tech savvy—I can barely get my laptop to work the way I want it, and I still haven’t really mastered my cell phone—I found looking into that first topic particularly interesting.  I hope readers, including the many of you who are more advanced than I in this area, will find my efforts informative.

[One word of caution/recommendation: I haven’t repeated in Part 2 identifications, explanations, or definitions that I gave in Part 1.  If you haven’t read the first installment, it would be a good idea to go back and catch it before proceeding to avoid having to toggle back and forth to look up that information.]

Now I think it’s time to tackle the technology of Sphere—the aspect of the venue that, alongside its shape, distinguishes it from all other entertainment venues.  Whether that’s good, bad, or indifferent . . . well, I guess we’ll have to see.

Let’s start with the exterior of the globe, since that’s what people see first.  In fact, the 580,000 square feet/54,000 square meters of LED light panels covering the Exosphere make Sphere visible from several miles away.  According to the website Virtual Events Group, it can be seen from outer space—though the Washington Post reports only that it “seems like it could be seen from space.” 

The exterior screens are fully programmable to create a dynamic exterior display with almost limitless creative possibilities.  “The possibilities for artists, partners, and brands to create compelling and impactful stories to connect with audiences in new ways,” are compelling to Sphere’s senior VP of brand strategy and creative development.  Among other spectacles, Sphere can “look like a black hole has opened up or a Christmas snow globe has landed in Vegas.”

At the first illumination of the exterior LED panels, the Independence Day spectacle last July, along with “LED fireworks, American flag effects, nature scenes, and some sci-fi visuals, perhaps the most stunning use of the world's largest artificial spherical structure was projecting some other famous spheroids from around the solar system on its display, including the moon, Mars, and even Earth itself.”

“Sometimes it’s a gargantuan basketball,” reported New York’s Observer.  It can also do an emoji face, a gigantic jack-o’lantern, and a tennis ball.  “And recently,” added the Observer, “it loomed in the skyline in the guise of an anatomically correct eyeball keeping watch over the strip.  These and other vividly realistic illuminations are stopping traffic across the city as locals and tourists pause to take in Sphere . . . .”

Using cameras placed at strategic locations around Las Vegas which can live-stream images of the cityscape surrounding Sphere, the orb can even perform a neat trick.  When the pictures are displayed on the LED panels of the Exosphere, it seems to disappear as viewers “see through” it to the terrain in which Sphere stands.  It’s called “see-through” or “cloak” mode.

Not all Las Vegans have been pleased or amused.  The Washington Post asserts, “Some see a technological marvel, while some see a gigantic spherical billboard that’s a prime distraction for drivers.”

Speaking of that billboard: the website Boardroom reports that “a one-week advertising campaign [on the Exosphere] could set brands back $650,000.  For one day (four hours, really), expect to pay $450,000.”

One Las Vegan nevertheless told a local news outlet “that he thinks the glowing ball is ‘the most incredible thing ever built in the world. . . .  I’ll look at it every night.’”  Another wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter), “This is the future right here.  Vegas is doing it right.”

Others have had different reactions.  “I would not want to see some of that from my hotel window after a late night out Vegasing,” wrote a visitor, and another resident posted, “Who wants to do some mushrooms and watch this thing all night?”

Now, let’s move inside Sphere, arguably the region of greatest interest.  It measures out at 875,000 square feet (81,290 square meters) of floor space.  As I mentioned earlier, the globe has nine levels, counting the basement, with luxury suites—13 at Level 3 and 10 at Level 5—which are expected to be acquired by corporate sponsors.  

Sphere’s interior, largely column-free to preclude obstructions to sight or imagination, was designed by MSG Entertainment (before the spin-off) and hospitality specialists Icrave, a New York City-based firm that specializes in nightlife venues such as lounges and clubs. 

Icrave’s founder and CEO, Lionel Ohayon, proclaims, “The experience doesn’t begin at the theater.  As soon as you pass the threshold of the Sphere, you are in the show.”  That’s because every space at Sphere is designed to generate a similarly surreal frisson as the entertainment event.

Sam Lubell of Fast Company, a monthly print and online business magazine published in Washington, D.C., that spotlights technology and design, describes the visitor’s first encounter with the inside of the orb this way:

The Sphere is dominated by an eight-level atrium, ringed with rounded mezzanines and bisected by crisscrossed escalators and flying bridges.  It’s as immersive and otherworldly as the theater itself.  To increase reflectivity—and a sense of otherworldly limitlessness—the floor is made of shiny, highly polished black terrazzo.  There are virtually no straight lines anywhere.  The lighting system, says Ohayon, “has a personality that can speak to you,” with virtually every surface lit by indirect LED illumination that can be customized for intensity, temperature, or color to match the mood or theme of any show.  Entry and exit thresholds consist of low archways that compress you and then dramatically release you into taller spaces.

The whole experience—of the setting, if not the performances—seems to be intended to evoke space travel, as if you’re making a stop-over at a space station in the late 24th century.  London’s Daily Mail declares that Sphere “looks like it landed from outer space” and Journey, a business consulting and services company, whose website bills itself as the “Next-Gen Customer Experiences,” posts that “Sphere . . . catapults the stadium experience into the future.”

But what about the auditorium, the performance space itself? 

Well, to start off, it’s called the Bowl, with a volume of nearly 6 million cubic feet (169,901 cubic meters), seating 17,385 spectators.  (The Bowl can hold a 20,000-strong, all-standing audience.)  The interior is big enough, the owners say, to hold the Statue of Liberty, from torch to base (151 feet without the pedestal; 305 feet total [46 meters/93 meters]). 

The stage is portable and adjustable to any size; it can even be removed for films.  Seating covers approximately two-thirds of the interior, with the stage occupying the remainder of the space.  The general admission (GA) floor is right in front of the stage, and there are four different distinct seating levels: 100, 200, 300, and 400.

The primary floor setup features a GA pit/floor area right in front of the stage, offering an up-close experience.  In this area, seats are not assigned.  The seats in the 100 section are closest to the stage, which are great for viewing the stage and the live performers; they’re not so good, however, for watching the screen, which is so big that it’s impossible to see any detail.  By most spectators’ experience, the over-hang of the 200 tier blocks the view from many 100-level seats.

Most advisors say that the 200 level is the best area, especially for concerts.  (It’s also the most expensive.)  For movies like Postcard from Earth and other video presentations, the common advice is that seats in the 300 and 400 level are best because they afford the best view of the screen.  (The 400 level offers the least expensive seats available.)

The common wisdom, especially as promoted by Sphere Entertainment and the Venetian Resort, is that there are no bad seats at Sphere.  Many attendees who’ve posted comments online disagree.  The over-hang I already mentioned was a frequent complaint from unhappy visitors, and several commented on the steep incline of the stairs accessing the upper tiers.  At least one commenter said that “it felt like being in a cramped airplane seat.”

The screen at the Bowl is about 3⅓ football fields (American—without the end zones)—160 square feet (14,864.5 square meters).  It’s the world’s largest and best-resolution and the giant LED screen wraps over and behind the audience, delivering a totally immersive visual environment.

Variety’s Willman describes a couple of effects created in the Bowl during U2:UV:

There’s one segment where the video screen turns this cornerless room into a rectangularly shaped space, and you can only guess at how the designers had to bend the laws of physics to create that illusion on a circular screen.  The most jaw-dropping moment of the night, arguably, comes when you look straight up and see what appears to be an elevator made up of data descending down toward you.  It can only be described as a very slow-motion, more abstract version of the chandelier dropping in “Phantom of the Opera.”

All seats in the auditorium have high speed internet access.  Sphere’s engineers devised an ultra-fast wireless environment so that 10,000 people can interact with the venue’s LED screen simultaneously from any seat in the house.

Some seats are also equipped with an infrasound haptic system to vibrate to match whatever is being depicted on screen, such as a helicopter ride or an earthquake.  4D machines that create wind, temperature, and scent effects are also a part of the Sphere experience.  The system’s embedded in the flooring system, which utilizes technology to convey bass through the floor for guests to “feel” the experience.

“When you’re riding a Harley, you’ll feel the pistons pumping,” says James Dolan, MSG’s CEO.  “When lightning strikes, you’ll feel that, too.”  Sphere Entertainment asserts that it can program and control the infrasound seating and audio systems to simulate a range of amazing sensory effects from the swell of the tide to a total shift in gravity.

(4D, or 4-D, refers to an ordinary three-dimensional experience supplemented by synchronized physical effects.  Infrasound, or low-frequency sound, is sound under the lower limit of human audibility; however, at higher intensities it’s possible to feel infrasound vibrations in various parts of the body.  Haptic [of or relating to the sense of touch] technology targets users’ tactile sense.) 

Sphere’s effects units can technically achieve wind blasts of a slight breeze up to 140 mph, enough to blow the roof off a building.  The temperature regulators can create everything from the ideal setting of Sphere’s AC system to the degree drop it takes to make spectators feel as if they’re immersed in a 4D blizzard.

“The sound is a new technology,” said Nick Tomasino, MSG Entertainment’s construction VP, “never implemented before, using beam-forming technology, which allows you to have the same experience whether sitting in the back or the front.”  (Beamforming is a type of radio frequency management in which a wireless signal is directed toward a specific receiving device, rather than sending it from a broadcast antenna to be spread in all directions.) 

At Sphere, the acousticians have ensured that every seat in the house gets optimal audio reception.  Furthermore, according to Sphere Entertainment, the venue has the ability to direct sound like laser beams.  Sphere’s sound system can deliver unique audio experiences to different listening locations all across the orb.  

According to Chris Willman of Variety, a demonstration for the press “showed how it is even possible to make it so that patrons sitting three seats apart could hear a lecture in different languages, with no bleed-over.”

Sound isn’t the only tech element Sphere’s techies can manipulate.  Visitors to the Vegas globe may be transported to an array of places, from far out in space to the bottom of the ocean.  The lighting system can simulate how light filters through different environments so Sphere can capture the effect as close to nature as possible.

As Caryn Rose of National Public Radio noted of the Bowl in its entirety, something’s “conspicuously absent”:

There are no speaker stacks, no carefully positioned hanging PA columns, no lighting rig.  As [U2’s] Bono and Edge gleefully told [New Zealand radio DJ] Zane Lowe and everyone else: "The entire building is a speaker."  What that means from a practical standpoint is not just immersive clarity, but also an incredible balance.  At the Sphere, Bono can speak in a normal, conversational tone into the microphone and everyone can hear it. 

Now, I want to have a look at what people who’ve experienced Sphere as an entertainment venue think of it.  Sphere “is living architecture,” says Guy Barnett, Sphere’s Senior VP of brand strategy and creative development, “and unlike anything that exists anywhere in the world.”

How does the first-person experience measure up?

Bono, U2’s lead vocalist and primary lyricist, said it himself: “This whole place feels like a distortion pedal for the mind.”

Actor and producer Aaron Paul, best known for Breaking Bad, was at the U2 première and averred that “U2 is arguably one of the biggest rock bands ever to exist, and this is arguably one of the greatest—if not the greatest—music venue on the planet.  We did a tour [inside Sphere] a couple of months ago.  Minds were blown.”

I’ve already quoted Chris Willman’s Variety review of U2’s opening performance at Sphere, so to narrow in on his opinion of how it fit into Sphere, let me return to his notice.  Of the rock band’s première, Willman wrote:

Not to take any credit away from U2, but the most impressive moment of the Sphere show may be when you first walk in the room.  And that happens on two levels, literally.  Above you, that massive domed ceiling has been made to look like you are in some industrial grain silo that has been constructed sky-high.  (One seatmate described the feeling of looking up at this while waiting for the show to begin as “terrifying . . . but not in a bad way.”)  It’s an immediate indication of some of the offbeat photorealism you will be in for.  But at the same time, if you’re on one of the lower levels of the multi-tiered auditorium, looking out over the general-admission SRO floor, and block out what’s hovering over you (which is surprisingly easy to do), you suddenly feel like you’re in the world’s coolest nightclub.  Or at least mega-club; at or slightly above floor level, it kinda just feels like the Hollywood Palladium, albeit with more of the audience wrapped around the sides of the stage.

The reviewer from arguably the entertainment industry’s premier journal also asserted that

it’s the audacious hugeness, not the Let’s Get Small interludes, that “U2:UV” will most be remembered for.  It is, at its giddy and delirious best, a slide down the surface of things, to recall a prophetic phrase that might have foretold the very existence of Sphere, a venue that invites you to spend a half-hour at a time thinking or talking just about its interior and exterior surfaces, including a ceiling that reaches to 366 feet tall.  These surfaces feels [sic] like they should be measured in square miles, not square feet, but U2 does not feel dwarfed in their glow.

He added that the show is accompanied by “a series of settings . . . that blow your mind, then give it a helpful rest, and then return for further sensory overload at the end.” 

Of the sound, which Willman dubs “phenomenal,” the Variety reviewer wrote that “it was more wonderful than anything we’ve ever heard in an 18,000-capacity venue.”  Reminding his readers of Sphere’s “system that micro-targets concertgoers wherever they’re sitting,” Willman reported that “the most basic goal, of offering studio-quality sound on a massive scale, seemed to have been met.”

Overall, Wilman concludes of Sphere as a performance venue:

“U2:UV” does come off managing to feel like actual rock ‘n’ roll.  It also feels like Circus Circus marrying some kind of foreign-film aesthetic.  With all the heart and soul and silliness and grandiosity appropriate to the host city, this might be the best shotgun wedding Las Vegas ever presided over.

(Circus Circus Las Vegas is a hotel and casino located on the northern Las Vegas Strip.  It features circus and trapeze acts, as well as carnival games, at its Carnival Midway, and an indoor amusement park, Adventuredome.

(I stripped out Willmer’s assessment of U2’s rock performance itself—and I’ll be doing the same for other evaluations.  As I suggested in Part 1, check out the review online for that.)

Another reviewer, Jackson Arn of the New Yorker, connected Sphere to “immersive” art experiences (like “van Gogh warehouses,” on one of which I reported on ROT on 10 and 13 January 2022):

Immersion bombards and overpowers; it commands the viewer to surrender.  At heart, it’s a prayer that we can spend a few moments in a state of pure attention, the sort once rumored to exist in monasteries.

All art makes some initial pitch for attention.  In immersive art, sustaining attention isn’t the means; it’s the point, the work’s way of justifying itself.  As such, the pitch is almost always the hard sell—intense, elemental sensation, immediately delivered.  Sometimes the method of immersion is scale; often, it’s eye-wrecking color, or some all-out assault on the visual field.  This sounds vaguely tyrannical, but immersion, as an ethos, is sweetly democratic.  It treats all of us the same and requires the same thing from each of us—usually, nothing.

(I feel the need to mention that, as an antidote to Sphere, Arn gives a marvelous review and description of an artwork near Las Vegas called City (1972) by Michael Heizer.  It’s a kind of gigantic earthen installation that took 50 years to complete, measuring 1¼ miles long and more than a quarter of a mile wide – 2 kilometers by 0.4 kilometers; 200 acres or 80 hectares. 

(Arn’s review of Heizer’s installation is too long, and too much about City and not enough about Sphere, to reproduce here—but I heartily recommend reading it at The Sphere and Michael Heizer’s “City,” Reviewed: Two Paths for Immersion | The New Yorker or in the issue of 20 November 2023.)

In Billboard, Katie Atkinson declared, “Nothing can prepare you for the magnitude of experiencing a concert in this venue.”  (Earlier, Atkinson expressed the opinion that “U2 was exactly the right band to welcome the mind-blowing space.”) 

Rolling Stone’s Andy Greene determined:

By any measurement, it was a stunning success.  The Sphere somehow managed to live up to years of hype with its dazzling 16K resolution screen that transported 18,600 fans from the stars in the night sky to a surreal collage of Vegas images, the arid deserts of Nevada, and the information overload of Zoo TV [a worldwide concert tour by U2 in support of their album Achtung Baby in 1992-93].  And the sound wasn’t the sludgy, sonic assault you typically get at an arena or stadium concert.  It is clear, crisp, and pristine, making earplugs completely unnecessary.  As advertised, this was a quantum leap forward for concerts.

Before the show starts, upon first entering Sphere, Greene observed, “With the screens off, it felt like you were walking into the world’s largest IMAX theater.”  But when things get going following a sort of warm-up, “the ludicrous scope of the place became apparent.  It’s impossible to even take in everything at once since the screen stretches far beyond anyone’s scope of vision.  All you can do is take the ride and absorb as much as possible.

As for Sphere’s impact on the pop music scene in the future, Greene predicted: “Whatever happens going forward, it’s hard to imagine a better proof of concept for Sphere than this U2 show.  It’s almost painful to imagine going back to a dumpy sports arena for a show after experiencing something like this.”

In contrast, however, Steven Hyden on UPROXX objected that “I’m having trouble imagining a band that isn’t U2 in that space.” He expanded his thought: “Is this extremely expensive bowling ball at all practical for non-Irish stadium acts who don’t have 18 months to prepare a two-hour spectacle?  Plenty of artists could play at this venue.  But who should?”  And he explained:

The Sphere is overpowering and ridiculous, technologically advanced and rooted in an old-time “more is more” show-business sensibility, and supported by some of the industry’s most powerful players even though it’s possibly unsustainable.

I read many professional reviews of both U2:UV and Sphere Experience/Postcard and a lot of the online remarks from ordinary entertainment-seekers.  My impression is that the overall response leans toward the positive, with a good number of really enthusiastic reactions to the experience.  There was a substantial representation from visitors who ranged from disappointed to angry, however, usually for one or another specific complaint.  (The ticket price was a big issue, and the seating, as I noted above.)

The majority seem to have been impressed with the various tech accomplishments—videos, sound; very few mentioned the haptic embellishments—and the response to the events themselves was pretty evenly split.  Except for the U2 concert—that got universal raves from both concertgoers and journalists. 

A fair number of commenters had complaints about something at Sphere but wrote them off as glitches one should expect from a new and innovative venue on its shake-down outing.  More than a few seemed concerned, as Steven Hyden of UPROXX posted, that Sphere would have trouble finding appropriate talent to fill its schedule and make successful use of its special features. 

Bono was the only artist I found who said anything about Sphere as a place to perform—but, then, his band are so far the only performers to occupy the place.  Darren Aronofsky spoke to the Hollywood Reporter about making Postcard from Earth, and he described a lot of the tech that went into shooting the film, but he didn’t say anything about displaying the movie at Sphere.  (For those interested in the cinematography largely newly invented for creating Postcard, read “Darren Aronofsky Describes His Journey to Creating the First Movie for the Las Vegas Sphere” by Carolyn Giardina at Sphere Las Vegas: Darren Aronofsky on ‘Postcard from Earth’ Film – The Hollywood Reporter.)

As for Sphere’s impact on concertizing in the future, I guess we’ll just have to wait for a few more performances and let the artists and managers determine where this new platform will take them and their audiences.

As for those who insist that only U2 is capable of fully making use of Sphere as a performance space . . . well, maybe if the London Sphere and any others still in the conception stage actually get built, more artists—even in other forms besides music—will reimagine what they do and create new work for a Sphere’s attributes. 

That’s what happened with film and television, isn’t it?  Even the legendary stage musical team of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II, often labeled the greatest of the 20th century, pivoted to film for State Fair (1945, 1962) and then TV for Cinderella (1957, 1965, 1997).

In the end, at least for Sphere’s inaugural outing, the general response seems to be what a friend of mine quoted a neighbor who went there as saying: “It was fantastic.  We loved it.  Everywhere you looked, there was something to see.”

 

Sphere, Part 1

 

[When the new Las Vegas entertainment venue Sphere opened on 29 September, I’d never even heard of it.  I obviously missed the memo.  I had a look on the ’Net and saw that there’d been major coverage in the press, both online and in print, for several years, since before ground was broken almost exactly five years earlier. 

[There was talk about the plans for the structure, its design and construction, the technology that would be incorporated, and every other aspect of the future spherical building.  I decided to do a post like the ones I did for Arena Stage’s and MoMA’s remodeling (26 November 2011 and 1 January 2020, respectively) and the Signature Center’s and Blackfriars’ construction (18 February 2012 and 18 November 2009)—a description of the architecture/construction and the tech as well as its function as a performance venue. 

[I’m not a techie—in fact, I’m half a luddite—so this assignment necessitated a lot of online research.  I started writing the report, the first part (of two) of which is below, on 12 October, and I hope ROTters find it interesting and informative.  Maybe it’ll even answer some questions you may have.

[Let me make one thing clear at the outset: this won’t be a review of U2:UV, the rock concert that initiated Sphere, or any other performance or event that’s taken place at the venue.  It’s strictly about the performance and event space itself.]

This is pretty much the antithesis of any accepted, traditional rock ‘n’ roll orthodoxy.  It is also the natural human reaction to just about any or all of “U2:UV Live at Sphere Las Vegas,” the greatest-show-on-earth that opened Friday night in an enormous dome just off the Strip.  The just-over-two-hour show marks the apotheosis of a bigger-is-better ethos that has regularly occurred throughout the band’s career, and which they are not about to give up now that they’re in their 60s for any back-to-basics false modesty.  The group that has spent so much of its recording output urging you to think about God, and other only slightly less weighty matters, is in Sin City mostly to make you say: “Oh my God.”  And we can vouch that we were hearing that utterance, from people above, below and around us, in a kind of reactive, quadrophonic effect that nearly matched Sphere’s vaunted 22nd-century sound system.

That’s what Chris Willman of Variety said in the opening of his review of U2’s concert at Sphere in Las Vegas on Friday, last 29 September.  U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere was the inaugural show at the new performance venue at the Venetian resort, just off the Las Vegas Strip.  The opening performance was witnessed by the likes of LeBron James, Oprah Winfrey, Andre Agassi, Jeff Bezos, Bryan Cranston, Snoop Dogg, and Paul McCartney.

Now, I’m not going to report on the Irish rock band’s performance—I’m not qualified to do that, even if I’d been there—but I’ll try to document what Sphere is: its architecture and construction, its technology, its impact on Vegas, its effectiveness as a performance space, and its influence on the entertainment scene at large. 

(For readers interested in the reviews of U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere, which focuses on the band’s album Achtung Baby [Island Records, 1991], there are plenty published by qualified music writers available online.  You can start with Willman’s Variety review, “U2 Takes to Playing in the Round (the Very, Very Round) at Las Vegas’ Sphere With Spectacular Results,” at U2's Sphere Opening Night Lives Up to the Hyperbole: Concert Review (variety.com).)

So, then: what precisely is Sphere?  Why’s it noteworthy?

Sphere’s a project of the live entertainment and media company Sphere Entertainment Co., formerly Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp.  In addition to the entertainment venue, Sphere Entertainment operates MSG Networks, regional (chiefly the Mid-Atlantic states) cable TV sports and entertainment channels, as well as a companion streaming service; MSG GO, producer of live sports content and other programming; and Tao Group Hospitality, a global entertainment, dining, and nightlife company.

First, let’s tackle the name.  (If Sphere Entertainment is successful in Vegas, this could be significant as they’re planning more of these structures around the world, starting with London.  It may, thus, become a brand name.)  Is it “The Sphere” or just “Sphere”?

Well, it looks to me like it’s the latter.  While Wikipedia and several press outlets (see the Washington Post, 9 July 2023) call the structure “The Sphere” or “the Sphere,” the venue’s own website and the New York Times consistently call it “Sphere”—without an article (except in phrases like “the Sphere experience” or “the Sphere show”).  That seems definitive to me, supported by Variety, which more often than not calls the structure “Sphere.”  I’ll go with that.

One contrarian online writer, Steven Hyden of UPROXX, an entertainment and popular culture news website, proclaims, “I understand that the ‘correct’ way to refer to the Sphere is simply ‘Sphere.’  But I am going to continue with ‘the Sphere,’ because 1) it just feels better and 2) it seems way less Orwellian.  Or should I say Bradbury-ian?”

Hyden is, I presume, referring, first, to George Orwell’s 1949 dystopian novel, 1984.  His second reference is to Ray Bradbury’s short story originally published as “The World the Children Made” in the 23 September 1950 issue of the Saturday Evening Post and then republished under its current name, “The Veldt,” in the 1951 anthology The Illustrated Man.  Hyden reports that James Dolan, the CEO of Madison Square Garden Entertainment and executive chairman of MSG Networks who conceived Sphere, has said he was inspired by the story.

(Because the structure’s name isn’t securely established yet in people’s or journalists’ minds, many media outlets are calling it “the Sphere.”  So, readers, in quotations in this article, you’ll see both “Sphere and “the Sphere” interchangeably.  I can’t avoid that, but don’t get confused.

(For instance, in addition to Hyden, the New Yorker’s Jackson Arn, the magazine’s art critic, introduces the structure as “The Sphere, a.k.a. Sphere, a.k.a. the Sphere at the Venetian,” and then proceeds to call it “the Sphere” throughout his critique.

(Keep in mind, too, that ‘sphere,’ with a small s, is still the common name for a round, three-dimensional, generic object such as a ball or globe.  The word will show up frequently in this report because, as the entertainment structure’s name implies, its shape is a sphere.)

Sphere is, in fact, currently the largest sphere-shaped building in the world at 516 feet or 157 meters in diameter.

(For the curious, the Avicii Arena in Stockholm, at 362.2 feet/110.4 meters is the second largest spherical structure, but if the London Sphere meets its planned specifications when completed, at 393.7 feet/120 meters, would surpass it.  For U.S. chauvinists, Spaceship Earth at Epcot in Walt Disney World in Florida, with a diameter of 165 feet/50 meters, is currently the sixth largest and the Perisphere, of the Trylon and Perisphere at New York’s 1939 World’s Fair, dismantled in 1941, is fifth at 180 feet/55 meters in diameter.

(If you’re wondering about the Unisphere, with a diameter of 120 feet/37 meters, the symbol of the 1964 New York World’s Fair and a permanent feature of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, New York, it isn’t a building, but a giant sculpture.  See my post on Rick On Theater, “A Helluva Town, Part 2,” 18 August 2011)

Sphere’s also, as one website declares, “one of the world’s unique structures.  It’s also a perfect fit—and an up-the-ante—for the restless, nonstop, glittering shit show that is Vegas.”

To be precise, the Vegas “pleasure dome,” as the New Yorker’s Arn dubs it, “is not, technically speaking, a sphere but a spherical cap, a ball with the bottom sliced off.”  For the sake of convenience and verbal simplicity, I’ll just call it a sphere or a globe.

To be more accurate, Sphere isn’t just a spherical building, it’s a geodesic, constructed on the same principals as geodesic domes.  (Most of the large sphere-shaped structures extant around the world are geodesics, I believe.)  The spherical shape is formed by tessellating triangles (obscured now by the overlay of the LED screens, but clearly visible as Sphere was going up).

If you look at the many early photos of the construction in progress—they’re all over the ’Net—you’ll see that the exoskeleton is made up of hundreds of interlocking triangles to create the 360° shape and structure of Sphere. 

The triangular elements of a geodesic are architecturally rigid and distribute the stress throughout the structure, making geodesics capable of supporting very heavy loads for their size.  In essence, a geodesic structure is extremely strong and stable compared to other kinds of curved edifices.

(Geodesic is both a noun and an adjective—there’s also a synonymous adjective, geodetic—which is derived from geodesy, the science concerned with determining the shape and size of the earth and the exact position of points on its surface.  The term has since been generalized to the geometry of any curved surface.)

As long as we’ve started with metrics, lets go ahead. 

As I noted, Sphere measures 516 feet (157 meters) across at its widest point and 366 feet (112 meters) high, and the exterior, called the Exosphere, is 580,000 square feet (54,000 square meters), covered in LED displays.  (According to the creators, that can be seen from space—but I don’t know if anyone’s actually checked that out.)  Sphere stands on an 18-acre (784,080-square foot or 72,843-square meter) site contributed by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation.

The Sphere project was announced on or about 14 February 2018.  At that time, the structure was known as the MSG Sphere because Madison Square Garden was originally the partner of Las Vegas Sands.  The site is east of the Venetian Las Vegas resort, an 8-minute, mile-and-a-half drive by a tortuous route.  There’s a pedestrian walkway directly from the Venetian Convention and Expo Center, associated with the resort, though reports are that it’s very slow and crowded after an event.

There’s limited parking at Sphere itself, about 300 vehicles, so visitors are expected to park at the garages of the Venetian, the Pallazzo (part of the Venetian complex), or the Venetian Expo.  The construction of a new Las Vegas Monorail station for Sphere and the Venetian was approved in 2018, but the Coronavirus shutdown halted the plans and no schedule for restarting the project has been announced.

From the announcement on, the control of the project got complicated to follow, as businesses and properties kept changing hands.  In 2022, Apollo Global Management purchased the Venetian, opened by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation (to replace the demolished Sands Hotel and Casino) in 1999, and became MSG's new partner on the Sphere project, replacing Las Vegas Sands.  As part of the sale, the land beneath the Venetian and the Sphere was purchased by yet another company.

Then on 20 April 2023, Sphere Entertainment Co. spun off from Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. and took its new name.  (MSG Entertainment continues to operate, though Sphere Entertainment owns approximately 33% of its outstanding shares.)

Sphere was designed by Populous Holdings, Inc., a global architectural and design practice specializing in sports facilities, arenas, entertainment venues, and convention centers.  MSG initially estimated the project cost at $1.2 billion.  

Two years later, the company said the price tag had gone up to $1.66 billion because of design changes.  The expense continued to increase, eventually passing $2 billion due to the COVID-generated worldwide supply-chain disruptions and the accompanying inflation surge.  

With a final price tag of $2.3 billion, it’s the most expensive entertainment venue in Las Vegas history, beating out the $1.9 billion Allegiant Stadium, a domed football arena in Paradise, Nevada, which opened in 2020. 

(Paradise is an unincorporated township of Clark County, Nevada.  It’s adjacent to, but not part of, the city of Las Vegas, also in Clark County.  Most people who visit the Las Vegas Strip—where Sphere is located, along with the Venetian—don't realize that they are technically not within the Las Vegas city limits at all.)

Ground was broken for Sphere on 27 September 2018.  Excavation began in March 2019 and the 21-foot-deep (6.4 meters) basement, where a VIP club, as well as back-stage facilities, are located, was started around May.  There are eight above-ground floors. 

Perhaps the most spectacular construction feat of the project was creating the framework for the dome of Sphere.  In order to achieve full coverage of the LED panels on the Exosphere, the engineers had to create precise contact between the panels and Sphere’s exoskeleton.  That necessitated a steel compression ring that forms the spherical shape of the building.

The compression ring sits at the top of the sphere and holds the structure in place so that all the component parts remain in the exact relation to one another without deviation.  As I understand it, this is necessary both so that the LED panels fit precisely onto the framework so that the Exosphere gives the impression of a seamless skin, and that the many parts of Sphere’s frame form the spherical shape. 

This maneuver was an amazingly complex operation taking many months of planning, preparation, and execution.  The compression ring itself was a monumental assemblage: a 170-ton steel ring—more than two Boeing 757’s (that’s what Air Force One is)—with a diameter of 136 feet (41½ meters). 

Because of its size and weight, the compression ring had to be assembled on the construction site.  It took crews three weeks to assemble it and weld and bolt the prefabricated pieces together on the ground.  Then it had to be hoisted into place atop a temporary 285-foot-tall tower at the center of the structure.  (Once construction of Sphere’s roof started, crews disassembled the tower.)

The prodigious lift was accomplished with the use of the world’s fourth-largest crawler crane, a huge crane mounted on caterpillar tracks, like a bulldozer.  This piece of equipment had its own saga.

In February 2020, the crane arrived on the construction site, shipped across the Atlantic Ocean from Belgium.  It weighs 869 tons and the boom can extend 580 feet high and has a load capacity of up to 1,760 tons.

When the crane was delivered by ship to southern California in January, it was broken apart and loaded onto 120 semis for the 340-mile journey to Las Vegas.  A separate crane was needed to reassemble it, a job that took 18 days.

The crane lifted the compression ring onto its temporary perch in February 2021.  Construction workers used a hydraulic lift on top of the tower to calibrate the steel ring’s exact position before emplacing the roof trusses, dividing the dome undercarriage into 32 pie slices, which serve as the skeletal support for Sphere’s steel dome—which weighs 13,000 tons.

This record illustrates vice president of construction for MSG Entertainment (now Sphere Entertainment) Nick Tomasino’s assertion that the building of Sphere “has every engineering and construction challenge that one venue could have . . . .”

The dome was “topped off” on 18 June 2021 and on 21 August, the company announced that work on the globe’s interior had begun.  Construction of the concrete-and-steel dome was finished in late October and work on the interior framework continued into 2022.

On 24 May 2022, “the last piece of the gigantic three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle” that is Sphere was fitted into its Exosphere.  Crews raised an evergreen tree and an American flag, the traditional symbols of the “topping off” celebration at a construction project when the last and highest section is completed, on the summit of the globe while more than 1,000 Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. employees and construction workers cheered the milestone event.

Sphere was slated to open in 2021, but construction was suspended between March and August 2020 due to supply disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic.  The venue opened on 29 September 2023 with the U2 show.  (The band’s residency is scheduled to consist of 47 appearances between the première show and 18 February 2024.)

The project began with 400 construction workers and eventually grew to employ an estimated 3,500 local workers.  Sphere Entertainment projected that the facility will provide 4,400 permanent jobs.  The estimated annual infusion by Sphere into the local economy is $730 million, generating in the range of $48 million a year in tax revenue for the State of Nevada and the Las Vegas metropolitan area.

Now, let’s talk about amenities.  It seems that Sphere isn’t brimming with them. 

There are 23 luxury suites, but Sphere Entertainment hasn’t released the prices for the suites, so I haven’t been able to pin down their cost.  I don’t even know if Sphere will be leasing the suites on a yearly basis, selling them like condominiums, or renting them per event—or some combination of all three.

(Why Sphere Entertainment is keeping prices and costs so sub rosa—even the drink price list is only known because it was leaked on Reddit—I don’t know.  Maybe they haven’t settled on what the market will bear, or maybe they’re just trying to generate mystery and buzz.)

If the suites are leased or sold, the costs will certainly be in the mid- and high six figures.  Las Vegas is generally an expensive city to play in.  If they’re rented by the event, the prices would probably be in the five-figure range, however.  (Suites, for example, at Madison Square Garden, the New York City arena of the original parent company of Sphere, rent for $8,000-60,000, depending on the game.)

In addition to the various prices of the luxury accommodations, I wasn’t able to track down any concrete information on what they offer.  Neither the luxury suites nor the so-called VIP club are described by either Sphere Entertainment or any press outlets I could find.  (There are photos of MSG’s club seating areas, but none of Sphere’s.)

I assume that they offer waiter service for food and drinks, possibly complimentary non-alcoholic beverages, private bathrooms, and comfortable surroundings, based on what other venues’ provide for the extra cost—but I don’t know that for sure and I don’t know what Sphere’s luxury accommodations may have that varies from the standard offerings.

Aside from the luxury suites, a minimum of food and drink is about all the venue offers outside of the entertainment for which it was built.  (I don’t see the tech that supports the entertainment function of Sphere as “amenities,” but I’ll be getting to that soon enough.)

Ticket prices for Sphere vary widely depending on how close you sit (or stand) to the stage, when you go, what the event is, and where you buy them.  U2 tix start in the low three figures and can go up to the mid-four figures.  Other events start as low as about $50 and can range up to a little under $500.  According to reports, Sphere’s admission prices aren’t out of line with other premier venues across the country.

(There are other events at Sphere at the same time as the series of U2 concerts are being performed.  One is The Sphere Experience, an interactive encounter with holographic art installations, a chat with interactive robots, and “22nd century technology.” 

(This is a two-part program that begins when you enter the venue.  The first hour begins in the Atrium, where, through immersive technology created specifically for Sphere, visitors are intended to gain a better understanding of how technology amplifies our human potential.

(The Sphere Experience then continues in the main performance venue, known as the Bowl, for a multi-sensory cinematic experience, Darren Aronofsky’s Postcard from Earth [débuted 6 October 2023].  This a 2023 film directed by Aronofsky, a filmmaker whose work is noted for being surreal and often disturbing, created expressly for Sphere.  Aronofsky says of his film: “Postcard from Earth is a sci-fi journey deep into our future as our descendants reflect on our shared home.”

(The film is an immersive exploration of planet Earth through the eyes of two human beings played by Brandon Santana and Zaya [Ribeiro].  It was designed and shot specifically for Sphere.  The 4D film features 270 degrees of viewing experience, climate control, shaking seats, and scents to create an immersive environment that tells the story of life on Earth.)

Once you’re inside the building—and by the way, once in you can’t leave and come back: reentry isn’t permitted—there are some rules of behavior; check the “Code of Conduct” list on Sphere’s FAQ page: FAQs | Policies & Ticketing | Sphere (thespherevegas.com).  Here are some other factoids regarding the “Sphere experience”:

There’s food and drink (including alcohol and sodas) available for sale on the Concourse, but it’s “food court” service.  There are counters for ordering and paying and there are self-service concessions for those who don’t want to stand on line, but there are no seats.  Prices are high, but not more than other sites similar to Sphere.  Quality is debatable: some visitors have shrugged it off, others have registered complaints online.

There are many eateries of various types in the immediate area of Sphere, but you can’t bring outside food or beverages into the venue.  If you want a real meal when you go to an event at Sphere, you should probably plan to eat either before or after the show and rely on the in-house food selections for snacks to hold off the munchies (if you’re ready to pay $7 for a Coke).

The only food-related items you may bring into Sphere is an empty soft plastic bottle.  (Glass and metal containers are not allowed.)  You can fill it with cold water from the drinking fountains around the facility and bring it into the auditorium.  No other food or beverage is permitted in the auditorium.

As far as I can tell, Sphere doesn’t, at least as yet, have merchandise for sale.  Some performers, such as U2, will have merch on display, but that’s on them.  Sphere just provides the space on the Concourse for the display and sales.  (I lie: Sphere does offer a “Souvenir Soda”—whatever that turns out to be—but it’ll cost you $14.  A “fountain” soda is half that.  So’s Path Water.)

Those seven-buck drinks are the cheapest things on the Sphere drink menu.  It was posted on the social media website Reddit.  A single drink of “Premium” liquor will cost you $15, “Deluxe” is advertised for $16, and “Ultra” is $19.  (You can get a “double,” but it’ll cost you . . . well, double.)  Domestic beer goes for $18, and premium lists for $19.  Wine, margaritas, and palomas (tequila, lime juice, and a grapefruit-flavored soda) are priced at $20, while the “Specialty Cocktail” costs $30.

As reported in Parade, the nationwide Sunday newspaper magazine, many visitors agreed that "this is price gouging at its finest . . . but it’s exactly in line with how every other venue gouges you," while others pointed out that Sphere’s prices are similar to venues in other cities, noting that the beers offered at entertainment facilities like Sphere are usually larger than normal (12 ounces), like 20 or 24 ounces.

One Reddit comment responded to the revelations that Sphere’s in an exceptional position as a new and advanced site and “is unique and can do whatever they want.”

Here’s an important tip: Sphere is entirely cashless.  You can’t pay for anything with money.  The venue takes credit cards (I assume all of them, but I don’t know that for sure), debit cards, or “mobile” (by which I presume they mean, your phone).  There are cell-phone chargers around the building and “reverse ATM’s” that will convert cash to debit cards.  I don’t know what happens to excess cash left on these cards when the show’s over.

(There are “trained” staff personnel in the facility who can assist visitors, and I assume they can answer questions about all this stuff—but don’t be surprised if the answer is “I don’t know”!  Upon entering Sphere’s grand atrium, visitors will encounter five lifelike, AI-equipped humanoid robots—all named Aura—that are programmed to interact with guests and reveal the marvels of Sphere to them.  I don’t know how extensive the programming is—human techies are standing by—but it might be fun to find out.)

[This concludes Part 1 of my report on Sphere.  Part 2 will be posted on Wednesday, 27 December.  I hope you will all come back then for my coverage of the technology of Sphere and some of the assessments, both from professional reviewers and from ordinary entertainment-seekers, of how well the Las Vegas event space stood up to its hype.]

A History of the National Endowment for the Arts: Update (2008-2023)

 

A Supplement to the Regional Theater Series 

[I was able to put together a facsimile of an update to the history of the National Endowment for the Arts from 2008, when Mark Bauerlein and Ellen Grantham ended their chronicle, “National Endowment for the Arts: A History, 1965-2008” (NEA, 2009), and 2023.  The result of my effort is below.

[Though there is more detail available if one digs deep enough, I decided to keep the record simple and brief.  My intention was to provide a sort of précis of the agency’s past 15 years as an indication of where it was headed since Bauerlein and Grantham finished their comprehensive report.

[Obviously, there isn’t a problem with reading this summary on its own, except for an occasional reference to earlier chapters, but if you haven’t been following the tale of the Arts Endowment, you might want to go back and catch up.  The Introduction and Chapter 1 was posted on 5 November; Chapters 2 through 10 and the Epilogue followed on 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, and 30 November, and 3 and 13 December, respectively.  The theater section of Part II of the report, “The Impact of the NEA,” ran on 16 December.]

Dana Gioia (b. 1950), a poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist, was appointed the ninth Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts by President George W. Bush (b. 1946; 43rd President of the United States: 2001-09) on 29 January 2003.  After serving one term, he was reappointed on 9 December 2006, but resigned on 22 January 2009 to return to writing poetry full time (see Chap. 10 [13 December 2023]).

Gioia’s position was filled by former Deputy Chairman for States, Regions, and Local Arts Agencies Patrice Walker Powell (b. 1952), appointed by Barack Obama (b. 1961; 44th President of the United States: 2009-17) to serve as Acting Chairman until August 2009. 

It fell to Powell to navigate the rough waters that rose during the economic downturn of 2008.  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5), the economic-stimulus bill enacted 17 February 2009, was amended by Congress to exclude a $50 million infusion for the Arts Endowment. 

Even several of the NEA’s most stalwart supporters such as Democratic Senators Charles Shumer (b. 1950) of New York and Dianne Feinstein (1933-2023) of California voted for the amendment; it took efforts from House Democrats and lobbying by arts groups and a phone call from actor Robert Redford (b. 1936) to the speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi (b. 1940) of California, to preserve money for the arts in the bill.

On 7 August 2009, President Obama appointed Rocco Landesman (b. 1947), Broadway theater producer, to be the 10th NEA chairman. 

For Fiscal Year 2010, the Arts Endowment’s budget reached $167.5 million [$227.1 million in 2023], the level it had been during the mid-1990s, but fell again in FY 2011 to $154.7 million [$203.8 million today].

During his tenure, Landesman oversaw the transformation of the Operation Homecoming initiative (see Chap, 10 & Epilogue [13 December 2023]) into Creative Forces (2013), which brought creative arts therapies to U.S. service members and veterans recovering from post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, and other psychological health conditions; the creation of Blue Star Museums (2010), which provided free admission to more than 2,000 museums throughout the country for active-duty military members and their families every summer; and a new grant program, Our Town (2011), which funded arts-based community development founded on the belief that the arts have a unique ability to create a distinct sense of place, jumpstart local economies, and increase creative activity.

Landesman, who was president of Jyjamcyn Theatres, Broadway’s third-largest theater-owner, from 1987—he bought the company in 2005—until his appointment, served until 31 December 2012, when he retired after fulfilling his pledge to serve only one term.  He was succeeded by Acting Chairman Joan Shigekawa (b. 1936), the former Senior Deputy Chairman and a film and television producer and arts administrator.

More than 18 months passed after Landesman stepped down from the Endowment’s chairmanship before his successor took office.  The cause was apparently President Obama’s deliberate talent search, though the White House didn’t make any comments on the delay.  Nonetheless, current and former NEA officials and other arts administrators echoed the feelings of the president of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, who said that “the agency tends to drift until you have a chairman coming in.”

The only time a leadership search had taken longer was in 2002, after the death of Michael Hammond after six days in office (see Chaps. 8 & 9 [3 December 2023]).  Obama announced his choice, R. Jane Chu, which had to be confirmed by the Senate, on 12 February 2014.

On 12 June 2014, the Senate confirmed Chu (b. 1947) as the Arts Endowment’s 11th chairman.  An artist, pianist. and educator, Chairman Chu was, from 2006 until her NEA appointment, president and CEO of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri.

At the beginning of Chu’s chairmanship, the agency rebounded a bit with a 2015 budget of $146.2 million [$182.4 million]—the same amount as had been appropriated for 2014.  (The figure was a slight raise over the 2013 allotment of $138.4 million [$177.9 million].)

The NEA produced the publication The Art of Empathy: Celebrating Literature in Translation in 2014, in which 19 translators and advocates of translation illuminate the challenges of bringing new voices to American audiences.  In 2015, the NEA launched an initiative, Creativity Connects, to examine and uncover the ways the agency could support a sustainable future for the arts and creativity in our nation by exploring how the arts connect with other industries.

In 2016, the NEA was awarded a Special Tony Award for “paving the way from Broadway to cities across the U.S.”  That same year and again in 2017, the Arts Endowment received Emmy nominations from the Television Academy in the Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series category for its digital story series United States of Arts.

On 16 March 2017, President Donald J. Trump (b. 1946; 45th President of the United States: 2017-21) submitted a budget outline to Congress that would have eliminated all funding for the Arts Endowment; Congress, however, approved a budget that retained the agency’s funding at $149.8 million [$181.3 million].  

In 2017, in the midst of this funding crisis, following a series of devastating hurricanes, the National Endowment for the Arts carried out a multipronged relief effort, awarding emergency funding for re-granting to the affected state arts agencies.

For 2018, the Trump White House once more proposed a budget that called for the elimination of NEA funding, but Congress again retained the funding for another year, increased to $152.8 million [$180.9 million].  At the end of Trump’s term the NEA’s annual budget for 2020 had risen to $162.25 million [$187 million].

That year, for its innovative outreach strategy to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, the National Endowment for the Arts received a Public Partnership Award in 2019, presented by the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (WHI-HBCU) at its annual conference in Washington, D.C.

During Chu’s term, she traveled to 200 communities in all 50 states, meeting with artists and arts organizations all over the country.  The initiative Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge was created during her tenure.  This is an opportunity, which started in 2016 as a pilot program, for high school students to develop and showcase musical compositions that could be a part of a musical theater production.

Chu oversaw the 50th anniversary of the agency in 2015, including a symposium with former chairpersons Landesman, Ivey, Alexander, and Hodsoll, moderated by Judy Woodruff (b. 1946), the respected broadcast journalist who was the anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour from 2013 to 2022.

In addition, a report was commissioned to update the findings of the Urban Institute’s 2003 study Investing in Creativity, which identified support systems necessary for artists.  The new report, Creativity Connects, investigated the major changes and trends affecting artists over the following decade.

A new grant program also called Creativity Connects was created to partner arts organizations with non-arts organizations on projects that advance common goals to benefit communities.   The anniversary year culminated in a symposium, In Pursuit of the Creative Life: The Future of Arts and Creativity in America, in which a diverse group from arts and non-arts sectors gathered to explore how creativity permeates nearly all professions, from transportation to engineering.

Chu resigned on 4 June 2018, succeeded by her Senior Deputy Chairwoman, Mary Anne Carter, as Acting Chairman.  Though her agency was targeted for elimination twice by the Trump administration, the departing chairman didn’t make any mention of the efforts in her resignation announcement.

Mary Anne Carter (b. 1966), a public affairs consultant, was nominated on 14 December 2018 by Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate on 1 August 2019 as the 12th Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.  She resigned on 20 January 2021, the day Joseph R. Biden (b. 1942; 46th President of the United States: 2021- ) was inaugurated.  In her final statement, Carter said, “A new team should have a new leader.”

Carter pushed to make the NEA more accessible to the American people, directing an expansion of Creative Forces (an arts therapy program for U.S. service members and veterans recovering from post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, and other psychological health conditions) and bolstering many of its national initiatives, including Shakespeare in American Communities, NEA Big Read, and Poetry Out Loud (all addressed in Chap. 10 [13 December 2023]; Poetry Out Loud is discussed in a sidebar on p. 161 of the published report).

To further expand the reach of the Arts Endowment, Carter held several public meetings of the National Council on the Arts, the NEA’s advisory committee, at locations outside the agency’s offices.  These include a June 2018 meeting in Charleston, West Virginia—the first such meeting outside of Washington, D.C., in 27 years—and in June 2019 in Detroit, Michigan.

On 14 February 2020, Native Arts & Culture: Resilience, Reclamation, and Relevance, a first-of-its-kind national convening that was hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, brought members from more than 40 tribal nations as well as the heads of several federal agencies together in Washington, D.C.

At the beginning of 2020, the world experienced its worst pandemic in more than 100 years.  In the United States, businesses effectively closed down for much of the year.  This was especially devastating for arts organizations and artists.

That year, the NEA received $75 million [$86.5 million] through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to preserve jobs and help support organizations forced to close operations due to the spread of COVID-19.  In 2021, the NEA received an additional $135 million [$150.5 million] through the American Rescue Plan (ARP).

On 18 December 2021, Maria Rosario Jackson (b. 1965), appointed by President Biden, was confirmed as the NEA’s 13th chairman.  An urban planner with expertise in integrating arts and culture into community development, Jackson is the first African American and Mexican American to lead the Arts Endowment. 

Before becoming chairman of the NEA, Jackson had a seat on the National Council on the Arts, appointed by President Obama in 2012.  Her term is scheduled to end in 2025 (though a Republican victory in the 2024 presidential election, especially if Trump is the GOP nominee, may cause that to change).

President Biden’s new NEA leader has two guiding principles.  One’s the premise of “artful lives.” Jackson defines this as “an inclusive concept containing a wide range of arts experiences, including the everyday, deeply meaningful practices and expressions within our daily lives as well as the making, presentation, and distribution of professional art from all disciplines and traditions.” 

It’s more than merely being an “audience” or consumer of art, which Jackson feels has been the focus of the NEA’s endeavors.  She considers arts participation as encompassing “many other ways of engaging [art], you know, thinking about making, doing, teaching, learning, in addition to participating as audience or to consuming art.”

Jackson’s other principle is “arts in all.”  She sees this as “the intention of full integration of the arts in how we live.  Not only does the concept push up against the relegation of arts as something separate or just extra, but we’re also leaning into arts integration that will create new opportunities and unlock resources for artists and arts organizations.” 

The purpose of this notion, as Jackson sees its application to the Arts Endowment, is to integrate the arts throughout the federal government.  Jackson sees this as a mandate for the agency to continue and expand its outreach and collaborations with other, non-arts agencies.

In June 2022, Chairman Jackson appeared before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies.  Her appearance was anything but routine, as it was the first time in recent history that the chairperson of the Arts Endowment had been invited to testify before Congress to discuss the agency’s budget.

During her first year in office, Jackson traveled to urban, suburban, rural communities in all regions of the country, and talked with artists and arts administrators from all artistic disciplines as well as people from other fields like the health, transportation, and community development who are also working with artists and arts organizations.  She met with elected officials and saw the work of many NEA grantees. 

For example, she saw evidence of Our Town investments from many years ago that are just now bearing fruit.  This Jackson sees as a practical development of her notion of promoting “artful lives” among members of the community.

Jackson expanded the NEA’s work at the intersection of art and health, a function of “arts in all.”  The Arts Endowment’s worked for a number of years with the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs on the Creative Forces Initiative, but now it also partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the CDC Foundation to launch an initiative to engage artists and arts organizations to promote COVID vaccine readiness in their communities. 

In 2022. the agency contributed to a long-term recovery and resilience plan, a program led by the Department of Health and Human Services, that uses a whole-of-government approach that emphasizes that arts and culture are critical to achieving success in a number of domains including social cohesion and paying attention to community wellbeing.

On 30 September 2022, Biden issued “Executive Order on Promoting the Arts, the Humanities, and Museum and Library Services” (Executive Order 14084).  The president declared the Biden-Harris Administration’s policy to advance equity, accessibility, and opportunities for all Americans, and to strengthen the creative and cultural economy of the United States by promoting the arts, the humanities, and museum and library services.

Jackson proclaimed that she was hopeful that this executive order bolstered the Arts Endowment’s work at the intersection of arts and other sectors.  She appointed a senior staff member to move this work forward, and urged the NEA staff to recognize this as a priority. 

In the executive order, Biden also re-established the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, after a five-year hiatus.  The PCAH is intended to advise the president and the heads of cultural agencies on policy, philanthropic and private sector engagement, and other efforts to enhance federal support for the arts, humanities, and museum and library services. 

Ex officio members of the revived PCAH include NEA Chairman Jackson and the heads of key cultural agencies and institutions such as the National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman and the Institute of Museum and Library Services Director, as well as the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art Director, Librarian of Congress, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The honorary chairman of PCAH is Dr. Jill Biden (b. 1951), the First Lady of the United States, which is traditional.  Other members include the Co-Chairs Bruce Cohen (b. 1961), an Oscar- and Tony-winning, Emmy-nominated producer of film, theater, and television; and Lady Gaga (b. 1986), the award-winning singer, songwriter, actress, and philanthropist.

Among the other almost two dozen committee members are Jon Batiste (b. 1986), a prolific and accomplished musician who was the popular first bandleader on Late Show with Steven Colbert; Oscar-winning movie actor and filmmaker George Clooney (b. 1961); and writer and actress Anna Deavere Smith (b. 1950).

Biden’s 2023 budget included an appropriation of $207 million for the NEA, up from $180 million [$187.2 million in 2023] for the previous budget.

In October 2023, the annual National Arts and Humanities Month, NEA Chairman Jackson stated:

We cannot tell the complex story of our nation without the arts and humanities, nor envision or achieve a more just, equitable, and hopeful future without them.  We celebrate not just the arts and humanities this month, but the imaginative and creative spirit that animates our democracy and makes better American—and global—citizens of us all.

[This chronology was compiled from various sources from the Internet.  Most of the information is from various NEA documents and reports.

[I tried to find a summary of the period of the current Arts Endowment chairman, Maria Rosario Jackson, but her administration is apparently still too new to have been chronicled, even for its first three years.  Therefore, I focused on what Jackson said were her goals and objectives, rather than her accomplishments. 

[This installment concludes my history of the NEA.  I hope ROTters found it informative and interesting.]