Nestled between hotels and conference centers, a short walk from the Las Vegas strip, is a giant, wide-eyed emoji. Sometimes it is an enormous, hyper-realistic eyeball, a basketball or a circle of flames. The Sphere, a remarkable new concert venue, is 366 feet (110 meters) tall and 516 wide; an LED screen spanning almost 600,000 square feet covers the exterior. Inside, enveloping the 17,500 seats, is another vast, ultra-high-resolution screen. This pleasuredome offers an experience unlike any other. It also raises questions about the future of live entertainment.

To some extent, the Sphere represents a major development in an existing trend of the arts becoming more immersive. Exhibitions that turn the paintings of Monet or Van Gogh into interactive, room-encompassing installations have proliferated in recent years, as have immersive theatre productions. Virtual-reality technology has improved significantly.

Is this the future of the concert? In the short term, no. The sheer cost of the Sphere—$2.3bn—means that the model cannot be easily reproduced. Its ostentation is also a barrier: Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, recently vetoed a sister Sphere in the city, calling it “bulky, unduly dominant and incompatible”. Sphere Entertainment Company, the owner, hopes to build other similar constructions and is in “serious” talks for an arena in Abu Dhabi. But negotiations regarding Spheres in Saudi Arabia and South Korea have stalled.

The Sphere does mark a bullish bet on the future of live music, however. The biggest acts have long had to make do with sports stadiums with low-quality sound effects, but this is a spacious, purpose-built venue. There seems to be plenty of demand for lavish productions by the biggest hitmakers: witness the billions of dollars in revenue made by Beyonce’s “Renaissance” and Taylor Swift’s “Eras” tours.

According to Luminate, an analytics firm, in 2023 consumers spent 91% more on live music events than the year before and attended 32% more concerts. Goldman Sachs predicts the market for live music will grow by 5% this year to reach nearly $40bn annually by 2030.

This growth is not just driven by repressed demand from the pandemic. Youngsters, who prefer to spend their money on experiences than on items, consider concerts good value, even when they are pricey. “People still want to have that experience of liveness,” says Steve Waksman, a concert historian, regardless of whether, as at the Sphere, it is “mediated” through screens. To some, the Sphere may be more bewildering than beautiful, but one thing is clear: the future of concerts is as rosy as the trademark glasses of Bono, the lead vocalist of band U2, who opened the Sphere in September, 2023.

Why do youngsters consider going to concerts good value?