U2 Helped Prove The Sphere’s Business Model — And Still Holds A Record At The Venue

U2 opened the Sphere in Las Vegas three years ago today (September 29), but the band did much more than inaugurate a very expensive new room where musicians perform. The 40-show U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere residency essentially acted like a test case for whether the $2.3 billion venue could function as something beyond an enormous video screen with seats attached. Would people pay higher prices and travel to Sin City for the experience?

Plenty of artists have followed in the Irish act’s wake, and some have stayed at the venue for longer stretches. The Eagles even surpassed U2 in terms of total revenue at the Sphere. There is one particularly impressive distinction that still belongs to Bono and company: no residency included in Pollstar’s comparisons has matched the roughly $6.1 million that U2 averaged per show – an incredible sum for a concert.

Three years after U2’s gamble began, that first run of shows looks less like a flashy opening stunt and more like the moment that the Sphere proved that it was an entirely new kind of live entertainment business.

U2’s Show Made More Than $6 Million Per Night

U2 played 40 concerts at Sphere between September 2023 and March 2024, selling 662,532 tickets and grossing $244.5 million – just under a quarter of a billion dollars. Every show sold out, and the run was extended several times as fans continued to head to Las Vegas to experience not only the band’s music, but a performance like none before it.

The Eagles have since made more money in total at the venue, bringing in $285.5 million from 58 performances as of summer 2026, but the group’s average doesn’t come close to what U2 managed. The “Hotel California” hitmakers trail that record by more than $1 million per night.

Dead & Company averaged approximately $4.3 million, while No Doubt came in at over $3 million, according to Pollstar’s comparison. It’s not entirely shocking that U2 made more money than No Doubt or even The Eagles. What is worth remembering is that U2 was the first to try out this space, and so far, while the venue itself has remained successful, nobody has been able to top what the inaugurators managed.

When the Grammy-winning band arrived, there was no established way to build a concert for the Sphere’s enormous wraparound LED environment. U2 and its creative partners – with plenty of help from the group behind the Sphere – had to figure everything out from scratch.

The Sphere Quickly Became A Destination For Major Musical Acts

What followed proved that other artists did not simply want to copy U2, but make the space their own. Phish brought improvisational rock into the venue. Dead & Company designed a visual experience capable of changing alongside a group that never performs the same show twice. The Eagles turned Sphere into a long-term home for a goodbye run, repeatedly extending a residency that eventually surpassed U2’s already-incredible gross.

Anyma brought electronic music inside, Kenny Chesney became Sphere’s first country headliner, the Backstreet Boys showed that boy band pop is still huge – at least among one audience – and Carín León recently became the first Latin artist to lead the room.

Metallica begins its run in October, and Lars Ulrich has specifically pointed to seeing U2 at the Sphere as the moment the band realized it wanted to join the ranks of some of the biggest acts in music. John Mayer, who helped shape Dead & Company’s production, recently announced six solo Sphere shows slated to begin next spring.

U2 Helped Make The Sphere More Than A Concert Venue

It makes sense that plenty of beloved musical figures, both soloists and groups, have followed in U2’s massive footsteps, but the Sphere has expanded beyond music. What’s possible in the venue is still being discovered, and what performs well in Las Vegas may dictate what live spaces around the world attempt.

The Wizard of Oz at Sphere had generated more than $450 million in ticket sales by its first anniversary, after welcoming more than three and a half million guests. The attraction can play repeatedly throughout the day, which is a very different business model compared to a traditional concert residency – and that is exactly the point. The Sphere can invest heavily in proprietary immersive content and sell that experience again and again, all while setting up another string of musical performances that will bring in tens of millions of dollars.

U2 was also at the forefront of that strategy. The band’s residency was transformed into V-U2 An Immersive Concert Film, which featured imagery and technology originally created for the live run. The show continued to generate ticket sales long after the musicians had left Las Vegas.

U2 Is Entering Another Major Era With Carnaval De Luz

This three-year anniversary comes at an unusually busy moment for U2. The band turned 50 several days ago, and it recently announced Carnaval De Luz, the group’s first full-length album of newly-written material in nine years, which is slated to arrive on November 13. The set comes after the rockers delivered a pair of EPs this spring.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com