The Stratford Sphere is dead, and so is Britain’s soul

First, a disclaimer: I have not been to the Sphere in Las Vegas, although I have glimpsed its inane emoji visage from a plane window, lighting up the night sky like a shrine to humanity’s worst and weirdest impulses. I have also seen videos of the interior on social media, U2 performing to 18,000 people from what looks like the inside of a Hieronymous Bosch painting, or the sweeping vistas of Postcard From Earth, so big and so crisp that viewers might believe – despite the obvious incongruity of their padded, Wi-Fi-enabled seats – that they’re actually touching grass. 

By now, we’ve all seen those videos, so we can all agree that the Sphere represents a lofty pinnacle in human history so far. (The pinnacle of what? I’m not quite sure.) This also begs the question: why has the UK government just thrown away the chance to build a big, beautiful orb of its own?

Yes, you read that right: as of this week, Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSG), the brain behind the Vegas Sphere, has officially withdrawn its plans to erect an even bigger spherical venue (no less than 21,000 seats) in Stratford, east London.

“After spending millions of pounds acquiring our site in Stratford and collaboratively engaging in a five-year planning process with numerous governmental bodies [...] we cannot continue to participate in a process that is merely a political football between rival parties,” says the company in a letter to the Planning Inspectorate. A spokesperson adds that MSG remains committed to working with “forward-thinking cities around the world” who are “serious” about the project, cementing Britain’s growing reputation as a cultural and technological backwater.

The future of the Stratford Sphere was first brought into question back in November 2023, when Sadiq Khan rejected a planning application on the grounds that it would be a “bulky” and “unduly dominant” addition to London’s architectural landscape. The London mayor also raised concerns about light pollution for nearby homeowners, as well as the amount of energy needed to power its lighting rigs. A month later, housing secretary Michael Gove called for a review of this decision, but by then the damage was already done – the Sphere creators had decided to pull out, and were just waiting to put the decision into writing.

Admittedly, Khan’s concerns about the London-based Sphere might have some basis in reality, although MSG apparently offered to provide blackout blinds to people living nearby, so who knows what they’re complaining about (I’m joking!!!). However, they also highlight a dreary theme in current British politics. In a political landscape where each party is trying to prove themselves more sensible, mature, and pragmatic than the rest – the Biggest Boy on the playground – there’s less and less room for fresh, exciting, or plain ridiculous ideas. It’s all sensible policies this and fiscal responsibility that. God forbid we experience a moment of joy on our grey little island, even if it is just a few seconds of a gurning emoji that saps the nation’s energy reserves.

In his 2021 series Can’t Get You Out of My Head, Adam Curtis notes this lack of imagination among the ruling superpowers. They’re “exhausted, empty of any new ideas,” he says. In 2016’s HyperNormalisation, he explores how a similar lack of vision sees states sleepwalk into their own destruction. (Curtis’ documentaries, of course, would make perfect fodder for the Sphere: an eerie tapestry of BBC archival footage everywhere you look, Burial booming through the venue’s 167,000 loudspeakers.) The death of the Stratford Sphere before it even began could be seen as yet another symptom of this managed decline, a failure to envision a world different to, maybe even better than, our own. No ecstatic, quasi-religious experiences for us thanks – we’re happy fetishising 2014 and staring into our phones, waiting for the inevitable decay of everything we hold dear!

You might argue that the experiences in the Sphere don’t actually look that transcendent, despite what visitors are saying online. To that, I would say that you just haven’t found the right use for the Sphere yet – maybe its limited offerings don’t cater to your tastes. The remedy to this isn’t to get rid of the Sphere, though; it’s to start putting everything in the Sphere, to give everyone a taste of what they’re missing. Royal weddings? Religious services? Get them in the Sphere. Endless Simpsons reruns? Sphere. Digitally-enhanced psychedelic trips? Sphere. Obscure Photoshop tutorials from the depths of YouTube? Sphere. Election debates…? We don’t care, we’re too busy imbibing the primordial wisdom of cute animal compilations in the Sphere! The point is, the possibilities are endless – you didn’t throw away your iPhone just because it came preloaded with a U2 album in 2014, did you?

If location’s the issue, then might I suggest the possibility that it doesn’t have to live in London, either? While the English capital already has its fair share of tourist attractions and concert venues, there are many UK towns that would likely welcome the sphere-shaped marvel – not least Blackpool, a seaside town that’s already earned its title as the Vegas of the North. It’s no secret that the nation’s coastal economy isn’t thriving, and the gaudy glow of Blackpool Tower and the illuminations has long since extinguished the stars, so you wouldn’t even have to worry about light pollution! 

Maybe you’re still not entirely convinced at Britain’s ability to pull this off, but the thing is, our version of the Sphere wouldn’t even have to be good. Even if it leaked rainwater, or haemorrhaged hundreds of millions of pounds like its Vegas counterpart, at least we’d have tried. It’s worth remembering, as we all go about our drab, Sphere-less little lives, that human civilisations aren’t remembered for playing it safe: it’s the big, ridiculous ideas that make it into the history books, like sailing around the Earth or landing on the moon (both spheres in their own right... just some food for thought). Yes, the Sphere may have failed, but unless we want to disappear in the LED shine of more “forward-thinking cities”, Britain needs to get serious about being a little silly now and then.