If you think “Wizard of Oz at Sphere” takes you for a ride now, wait until the “2.0” version.
A new “ride experience,” with a witch character, is being developed for the upgraded “Wizard” production in September. And, fans of winged monkeys will also be encouraged by the show’s upcoming enhancements.
“We’ll have some fun modifications and additions that we’ll make for 2.0, including that you’re going to go for a ride with a witch, and new kinds of flying monkeys,” Sphere Entertainment Chairman and CEO Jim Dolan said Thursday in his company’s quarterly earnings call. “I think you’re going to see that the product remains robust in its demand.”
“The product” has been performing well even during an expected dip in summer business. Dolan said “WOZ” could well follow the endurance example set by Cirque’s “O” at Bellagio.
That production has sold more tickets than any single residency production in history (20.2 million is the latest count) and still reportedly sells at about 95 percent.
“WOZ,” in the meantime, runs multiple times daily and sold nearly 3.6 million tickets, generating approximately $450 million in revenue. The production’s one-year anniversary is Aug. 28.
“The show is performing very well. It is subject to, as basically everything in Vegas is, to seasonality. We’re in the middle of the summer, which is definitely the low season for it. It’s still doing very well,” Dolan said. “I anticipate we could run ‘Wizard of Oz’ for a long time and do very well with it … If you take a look at the show ‘O’ in Las Vegas, which has been running now for over 30 years, it doesn’t seem like the appetite for that show has really diminished at all there.”
Dolan put an ambitious lifespan on “WOZ.”
“I think that ‘Wizard of Oz’ could easily go 10 years,” he said, “playing in other Spheres, occasionally playing in Vegas, et cetera.”
Dolan also sharpened the opening timeline for “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” which will toggle times with “WOZ.” The exec likes the demographic range covered by that combination.
“Our plans really are to come out with the new version of ‘Wizard of Oz’ sometime, we hope, in September. Then, of course, in March, to add in ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show,’ which will give us the ability to service families in the daytime and then a more adult audience in the evening,” Dolan said. “I think that’s going to work very well.”
Sphere Experiences is turning around its theatrical productions much more swiftly than during the “Postcard From Earth” and “WOZ” development periods.
“’Wizard of Oz’ really took two years to make. ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ is going to take less than 12 months,” he said. “We’re getting better at it, particularly when it comes to the use of AI and the production techniques that we developed for ‘Wizard of Oz.’”
Dolan reiterated that Sphere Entertainment productions would run across multiple Spheres. The company has its 6,000-capacity Sphere opening in National Harbor, near Washington, D.C., by 2030 (construction beginning in 2027). The 20,000-capacity Sphere opens on Yas Island, between Yas Mall and SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, in 2029.
“The whole business equation that the strategy here is to create reusable content that goes from Sphere to Sphere,” the exec said.
“Rocky Horror” is the company’s most adventurous project yet, a low-budget parody-musical that grew into an international phenomenon via crummy little theaters.
“Look, ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show,’ I think it is going to be a smash. Just take a step to the left,” Dolan said. “It’s a little like movie theaters in a way, in that the content fits the daytime and what time you’re showing it.”
“Nobody in Abu Dhabi has seen ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show.’ I’m wondering how they’re going to like that.”
As we say with everything else at Sphere, we want to be in that audience.
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.