Two LED domes – comparable to the Sphere in Las Vegas in all apsects but their size – are reportedly planned for China, with the first expected to open soon in Qianjiang.
The Sphere Effect: China Gets Two New Immersive LED Domes
China’s immersive venue market appears to be taking a page from Sphere in Las Vegas, with two LED dome projects moving ahead in Qianjiang and Shanghai.
As first reported by AV Interactive’s Guy Campos, the projects are planned for Qianjiang in Hubei province and Shanghai. The first, Tiangong Nova, is expected to open soon in Qianjiang, a city of nearly one million people about 90 miles west of Wuhan and roughly 680 miles inland from Shanghai.
According to a Chinese newspaper report cited by AV Interactive, Tiangong Nova stands 46.5 meters (153 feet) tall, about the height of a 15-story residential building, with a 54-meter (177-foot) diameter dome. The report says the venue has a 7,500-square-meter (about 80,700 square feet) curved external LED display with a 55 mm pixel pitch.
That makes Tiangong Nova about four-tenths the height of The Sphere in Las Vegas, about one-third of its width and roughly one-seventh the size of the Las Vegas Exosphere.
Sphere reportedly cost more than US$2 billion to build, making it a difficult model to replicate at full scale in many markets. The Chinese projects suggest a lower-cost version of the same idea: large-format LED architecture built around immersive entertainment, but potentially at a price point that could be repeated in more markets.
The report also underlines how quickly The Sphere has become a reference point for venue developers, LED suppliers, and experiential entertainment companies. Even if the Chinese projects are smaller or less technically ambitious, they point to a format that may be moving from one-off spectacle toward a more repeatable venue model.