The company behind Las Vegas’s Sphere announced plans on Monday to bring a smaller version of the orb-shaped venue to the National Harbor outside Washington, D.C.
The Sphere, which is covered by a giant LED exosphere that runs 366-foot-tall animations around the clock, first opened its doors in 2023. Now, three years later, a second Sphere is coming to the U.S.
Sphere Entertainment, the venue’s parent company, announced on Sunday that it has plans to open a new, scaled-down Sphere at the National Harbor in the Washington, D.C., metro area. The announcement was made jointly with the state of Maryland, Prince George’s County, and real estate developer Peterson Companies.
“Our focus has always been on creating a global network of Spheres across forward-looking cities,” said Sphere Entertainment CEO James L. Dolan, in a press release. “Sphere is a new experiential medium.” Sphere Entertainment is also planning an international venue in Abu Dhabi.
The Maryland project would be supported by a mix of public and private funding, including roughly $200 million in state, local, and private incentives.
The proposed National Harbor venue would be the first-ever smaller-scale Sphere. It’s expected to seat around 6,000 people, but will still feature the same technology used in Las Vegas, both inside and outside the venue. For comparison, the Las Vegas Sphere seats 18,600 people and reportedly cost $2.3 billion to build.
Since opening in 2023, the Sphere in Las Vegas has hosted residencies from artists including U2, Phish, and the Backstreet Boys. This year, No Doubt and Mexican artist Carín León are set to join that lineup.
Beyond concerts, the venue has also screened immersive film experiences like Postcard from Earth by director Darren Aronofsky, as well as a reimagining of the Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz. That Oz experience debuted last August and has already sold more than 2 million tickets, generating over $260 million in ticket sales, according to the company. The film runs daily, with tickets currently available through the end of the year.
But the future didn’t always look so bright for the Sphere. In its first year of operations, the venue posted an operating loss of over $500 million. Plans for a Sphere in London also fell through.
Now, things may finally be slowly starting to turn around. In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Sphere Entertainment reported that its Sphere division generated $507 million in revenue during the first nine months of 2025, while narrowing its operating loss to $261 million during the same period.
