The Madison Square Garden Company (MSG) edges closer to the eventual completion of its Las Vegas “MSG Sphere,” a 23,000 capacity crystal dome shaped venue that will seek to “revolutionize the way artists and audiences connect” through its technological design.
“The environments and the stories told with this new medium will be impactful,” MSG Chairman and CEO James Dolan stated of the initiative. “We’re just beginning to imagine where we’ll take our audiences,” Dolan added, citing the Sphere as a structure tailored to the performative needs of the “finest storytellers, artists, and content creators across the globe.”
MSG signed a lease with Las Vegas Sands Corp, owner of both the Venetian and the Palazzo casinos, on July 13. Sands Corp will provide MSG with $75 million in funding over the course of the Sphere’s construction. The terms of the lease dictate that MSG must open the building by 2023, although MSG officials intend to have the structure operational by 2020.
The $75 million allocated to the Sphere will finance a pedestrian bridge between the casinos and the Sphere. MSG will lease the land that surrounds the Sphere for a 50-year period, during which MSG will pay Sands 25 percent of the Sphere’s “after-tax cash flow” rather than a fixed rent rate, if “certain return objectives for the MSG Sphere are achieved.”
MSG plans to establish a similar venue in London.
Photo Credit: Mixmag
H/T: Billboard
Source: dancingastronaut.com
