We’re Off to See The Wizard… at the Sphere
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The original cover of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Since L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published in 1900, it has become a children’s classic and then a blockbuster Oscar-winning movie in 1939. Variations on Baum’s book have been adapted for film, television, theater, books, comics, and games. Think “Wicked” (book, musical, and movies) and The Wiz (Tony award-winning musical and movie), among others. And now, it’s an AI-enhanced, fully immersive, 4D spectacular at the Sphere.
The book has been continuously in print for over 120 years, has sold millions of copies worldwide, and has been translated into over 50 languages. In case you didn’t know it, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is only the first novel in the Oz series. Baum wrote 13 sequels to the original. The Library of Congress touted it as "America's greatest and best-loved homegrown fairy tale." The National Endowment for the Arts calls it “America’s first fairy tale”.
The 1939 movie used a stunning color transition to emphasize the dramatic change from the earthy sepia tones of the Kansas prairie to the enchanting, vibrant, color-saturated world of Oz. At the time, it was a revolutionary, very expensive process known as three-strip Technicolor. The Sphere goes way beyond that, using its 160,000-square-foot, 16K resolution screen, enhanced audio, and multi-sensory effects to immerse its audiences in the world of Oz.
Sepia-toned Kansas versus Dorothy’s first View of Munchkinland
Dorothy’s first view of Oz
Though we live in Las Vegas, we rarely, if ever, attend a show or concert here. But when the Sphere announced in early June that it would be presenting an AI-enhanced version of The Wizard of Oz beginning in August, I was ‘all in’. However, the hefty price of admission made me think twice. Maybe Sphere's production costs to adapt the Wizard of Oz film to their venue experience… $80 million, with some reports placing the final cost closer to $100 million… had something to do with the ticket pricing. Still, the ticket prices seemed unreasonable.
Critics gave the show mixed reviews.
Variety: “Magic… but AI technology sapped Dorothy and friends of their humanity”
New York Times: “Whatever the reason, the result resembles what you might get if you fed The Wizard of Oz to a machine and asked it to take out what it thought was extraneous.”
San Francisco Chronicle: “The most head-scratching and unforgivable part of the Sphere’s version of The Wizard of Oz is the emotionless, synthetic sheen of its figures.”
But most audiences seemed to like it… other than the ticket prices, that is.
It’s scheduled to continue until March 31, 2026, and I reasoned that the ticket prices might go down after the initial hoopla. A week ago, the company issued a press release sharing that the show had already sold over 500,000 tickets since its debut, and they anticipated that ticket sales would continue to be robust. I checked prices again. They’d gone up and pricing for future shows later this year and through March of next year was even higher.
Then, to my surprise, David purchased tickets for the September 28th matinee “performance event” as a very early birthday present. We went yesterday! Taking the RTC bus to the Strip eased parking issues for Blanche and only served to heighten our anticipation. I was beyond excited.
The Sphere is owned by the Venetian, only a few blocks away. We had an expensive lunch at the Yardbird restaurant there before the show. We caught the Venetian’s promotional Oz exhibit on our way. It was quite popular with the tourists… and us.
The Venetian’s promotional Oz exhibit was pretty cool. Lots and lots of red poppies!
After lunch, we headed over to the Sphere along with crowds of others attending the same 2 PM performance. Fortunately, we arrived early and discovered the gigantic feet of the Wicked Witch clad in her iconic ruby slippers sticking out from underneath the Sphere. A great photo opp.
The lines were long, but once the gates opened, they moved quickly, and we were through security screening and inside the Sphere, scanning our electronic tickets and making our way to our seats, anxiously awaiting the start of the show. Fragments of familiar Oz tunes were playing, sounding as if an orchestra was tuning up. An image of a stage, complete with curtains, speakers, and screens, was projected on the Sphere’s huge screen. I was hoping there’d be a few pre-show teasers to keep us amused, but there was nothing. Attendees, arms full of overpriced Wizard of Oz snacks, found their seats, and the show began promptly at 2 PM.
This was an AI-created image, not the real thing. Impressive, huh?
Is that the MGM lion?
I can honestly say that the Sphere production of the Wizard of Oz was 77 minutes of less than wow! We sat immersed in a multi-sensory bombardment. Sphere’s graphic display wrapped up, over, and around us, so large and so close with some aspects intentionally blurred that as the images panned around, it was sometimes dizzying. Cyclonic winds howled and roared. The earthy smell of ozone permeated the air. In the midst of the gigantic tornado, debris whipped around, and tissue paper leaves swirled by our faces in the tempest. Our seats rumbled. The noise was near deafening. The tornado was definitely a highlight.
Find Shelter, Dorothy!
A few falling apples (the foam variety) dropped from the ceiling as enchanted talking trees threw them at Dorothy and Scarecrow. So few fell into the audience that people fought over them. The victors proudly displayed their booty; the rest of us were disappointed.
It was Las Vegas glitz and razzle-dazzle from the beginning to the end of the yellow brick road. Faux snowflakes fell from the Sphere’s ‘sky’ to keep the poppies from overwhelming Dorothy and the audience.
Flying monkeys took to Oz’s sky. Sixteen-foot drone-controlled flying monkeys whizzed across our Sphere sky, too, then landed on the floor in front of the screen.
Fog and fire provided special effects. The wizard was definitely formidable on the huge screen as smoke and huge flames shot up on the screen, and real smoke and flames shot up in front of the screen.
The Wizard was pretty formidable!
Real fire and smoke shot up in front of the screen.
After the show, a short ‘after-show’ performance was presented in the Sphere’s Atrium. The lighting was emerald green. The Wizard offered photo opps. Merch and Oz kitsch were available for purchase. We did get a chance to photograph the huge flying monkeys hovering over the crowds.
View of the ‘after-show’ from the 2nd level balcony
A close up of a blue flying monkey. Check out those red, penetrating eyes.
Unlike the critics, I guess I wasn’t necessarily looking for the familiarity of the original Wizard of Oz, nor was I disheartened that the characters I know and love were “sapped of their humanity”. But it WAS the original movie, truncated and ‘enhanced’, and I guess I wasn’t expecting sameness; I was looking for something more than vibrant color, wind, vibrating seats, tissue leaves, and a foam apple drop. I wanted a 360° WOW of a spectacle, and despite all the hoopla and gimmicks, I was disappointed not to find it. I guess I agree with the New York Times appraisal.
By comparison, we’d gotten free tickets to a huge Delta Airlines presentation at the Sphere when we attended the CES convention last January. It was a mind-boggling, gob-smacking experience, and we expected more of the same, but alas, it wasn’t to be.
So what’s the verdict?
Was it expensive? Yup! Even budget tickets cost us nearly $5/minute!
Are we usually budget-minded kind of folks? Absolutely! We measure ‘value’ by our level of enjoyment, appreciation and/or satisfaction for dollars or energy spent. This was not a good bargain.
Was it worth the money? Hmmm… it was a $50/pp experience, but not a $179/pp experience. That said, if we hadn’t gone, I would have regretted not seeing it, thinking I had let something fabulous pass me by. So I’m glad we went.
We discussed the event and our feelings towards it on the bus ride home. David shared my sentiments. Perhaps, we’ve become jaded. We’ve seen and done and experienced so much over the years that it’s harder to impress us now, I guess.
A couple of hacks if you plan to go...
Consider a weekday morning or matinee performance
Using TickPick avoids the fees. We had our electronic tix on our phone and in our Apple Wallet in a matter of minutes and saved about $45 in fees over regular ticket prices from Ticketmaster.