Vegas has the ‘Sphere,’ Minneapolis will soon have the ‘Square’
Minneapolis will soon be home to one of the biggest immersive video technology event spaces in the country. It won’t be as big as the now world-famous “Sphere” in Las Vegas, but the developer promises it will still have a “wow” factor.
“Everyone’s visiting (the Sphere) in Vegas. So I think we’re on a smaller scale calling it the ‘Square’ because it gives you that same immersive experience the Sphere gives you,” Steve Hark of Entourage Event Group told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS this week.
He says they’ll use state-of-the-art projection mapping technology to transport visitors anywhere they can imagine.
“You can be in Rome having dinner. You can be on the streets of New York, you can be under the water. You can be in an aquarium. You can be having a livestream of a sports game here.”
Hark gave 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS a tour of the facility at 501 Royalston Avenue in the part of the downtown North Loop, not far from the Minneapolis Farmers Market. It’s a fairly nondescript former warehouse facility now, but he says it will go through a transformation by October that he says will surprise visitors.
“So you walk them into an industrial space and they say, ‘Why are we here? What is this boring warehouse we’re having the event in?’ And then you create that shock!”
The shock will come when bland white walls suddenly transform into an immersive experience that can transport you almost anywhere in the world or even into the middle of a live sporting event that surrounds you. The event space will start out at 20,000 square feet with the capacity to expand to 80,000 square feet.
It will focus on corporate events, private parties and even weddings. It will be scalable to the number of people expected and Hark says the video options are limitless.
”Any video you have on your phone or can be given to us by a client we can project it and have them live in that space, live in that moment, when they’re hosting an event.”
The “Royalston Square” venue will not have an exterior video display like the “Sphere,” but when it opens in October Hark says it will bring a new energy to an otherwise neglected part downtown not far from Target Field.
“I think this will connect the North Loop to downtown,” he says. “This will bring vibrancy. This will bring traffic.”
Entourage Event Group will soon begin offering tours of the facility to show potential clients the capabilities of the new venue.
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS will have more on this story during Thursday’s Midday and evening broadcasts.