When Formula 1 first announced it would return to Las Vegas after four decades for arguably the most ambitious street race in the world championship’s history, it was easy to picture the iconic sights of Sin City that F1 was hoping to build the event around.
The world renowned Vegas Strip. The dazzling Bellagio fountains. Ceasars Palace, the MGM Grand and many more neon-lit casinos.
But despite the circuit passing by the city’s most glamourous and well-known sights, there was another feature that grabbed by far the most attention over the inaugural race weekend in 2023 – the 112m tall, state-of-the-art, globe-shaped entertainment complex known simply as ‘the Sphere’.
Opened just weeks before last year’s race and sitting just next to the race track at the turns seven and eight chicane, the $2.8 billion Sphere is as unmissable a landmark as it’s possible to get. Constructed from approximately 54,000 square metres of LEDs, the external display of the venue – known as the ‘exosphere’ – is impossible to miss. The single largest LED screen on the planet allows for elaborate animations, videos and advertisements to be beamed throughout the city, becoming the perfect multi-purpose billboard for the sport’s ultimate night race.
What does it do?
The event organisers took full advantage of the sphere to display several elements on the Sphere. The structure adopted the form of a yellow cartoon face which sported the helmet designs of various drivers and ‘followed’ them with its eyes as they drove past.
Due to the sheer size of the feature, the Sphere was visible from almost all of the grandstand seats running along the final corner and on the approach to turn one. Even if it was not shown every lap of the race on the world feed coverage, the fans that paid many thousands of dollars to attend could hardly miss it.
There was even an entire section of the circuit grounds just outside the sphere known as the T-Mobile Zone where fans could purchase tickets to enjoy live music and other entertainment ongoing during the race.
During the race, the sphere had special graphics that were shown to denote major race status events, such as the Safety Car deployment and the chequered flag at the end of the race. But for most of the grand prix itself, the Sphere was used mainly to display advertisements for the event’s sponsors, including Heineken, Paramount+ and Google Chrome among others.
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