The Wizard of Oz at Sphere is a 4D immersive experience that is located right by the 550 foot high High Roller Wheel in Las Vegas, transforming the classic 1939 film into a multi-sensory event using advanced technology.
The experience uses the venue’s massive 16K resolution wraparound LED screen, which is the highest resolution every used for any movie, haptic seats, and environmental effects like wind, fog, and custom scents to transport audiences into the world of Oz.
The original film’s score was re-recorded with a full orchestra, and AI was used to enhance the visuals to fit the unique, and gigantic 160,000-square-foot display- which is the size of 4 football fields!
You can also see in the below photo a still photo- HD version taken direct from the “Wizard of Oz” movie, right as Judy Garland as “Dorothy” sings the iconic “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (with her dog Toto) that few songs in history have captured so many people’s hearts. The above photo is taken direct from the movie screen. Below is the still photo- HD version: 
It is an incredible experience that you will always remember that uses immersive technology that utilizes the Sphere’s cutting-edge technology, including a 160,000 square foot interior display: 
167,000 speakers for immersive sound, haptic seats, and multi-sensory 4D environmental effects for The Wizard of Oz at Sphere – the exciting immersive experience! 
Audiences felt like they were traveling down the yellow brick road alongside Dorothy and her friends on an adventure to the Land of Oz! 
It has life like environmental effects so that audiences can feel wind during the tornado scene, experience falling foam apples in the orchard, and smell the poppies in the poppy field, making the experience highly sensory.
The original film’s visuals were enhanced using AI and traditional visual effects to fill the massive, curved screen, while the musical score was re-recorded with a full orchestra for enhanced clarity. 
This movie is a unique and a once in a lifetime experience for adults to go see, and for those of you with children they will love it even more, and they will be so great-full to you that you took them, as this “is fun for kids of all ages!
The Las Vegas Sphere is showcasing a reimagined, immersive cinematic experience of the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz.” This experience utilizes AI to expand the original film frames to fit the Sphere’s massive 16K wraparound screen and incorporates 4D effects like haptic seats and scent to enhance immersion.
The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere will transport audiences, making them feel like they are traveling down the yellow brick road alongside Dorothy and her friends on an adventure in Oz to get to the Emerald City. The film experience will fill Sphere’s 160,000 sq. ft. interior display plane, which wraps up, over and around the audience to create a fully immersive visual environment.
Also, it will utilize the venue’s haptic seats, environmental effects and custom scents to make you feel like you are part of the movie and have landed in Kansas and Oz. The film’s original songs have also been remastered, and their orchestrations re-recorded to take on new clarity via Sphere Immersive Sound’s 167,000 speakers.
At Sphere, audiences are transported to new places without ever leaving their seats, and The Wizard of Oz at Sphere marks the first time Sphere has produced a 4D experience of this size and scale.
The Wizard of Oz at Sphere combines high-velocity wind arrays, atmospheric fog, towering fire bursts, infrasound haptic seats, and a real-time motion capture system – all designed to sync seamlessly with the story unfolding on screen.
Custom lighting schemes, under the direction of renowned lighting designer John Torres, will enhance the sense of immersion. In the twister, the storm comes to life inside Sphere, with wind, fog, swirling haze, and leaves surrounding the audience as the tornado envelops the Gale farm on screen.
In the Wizard’s Chamber, towering flames erupt inside the venue. As Dorothy and her friends enter the Haunted Forest, Winged Monkeys take flight over the audience, making them wonder if they too will be whisked away to the Wicked Witch of the West’s castle.
They built a full Wizard of Oz set, with his throne, and real fire right on the stage, that appears melted into the film on the movie screen, during the scenes when the Wizard appears in his “headquarters” or Chamber in the movie:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gpwcaNyIrY&t=21s
-
AI-Enhanced Visuals:The original film has been upscaled using AI, and scenes are expanded to fill the Sphere’s 160,000-square-foot screen. For example, if Dorothy was once in a close-up, the expanded scene might now include the whole gang alongside her.
-
Immersive Audio:Judy Garland’s vocals are preserved, but the orchestral score has been re-recorded with 80+ musicians using vintage techniques. The Sphere’s advanced sound system, including beamforming and wave field synthesis, creates a highly immersive audio experience.
-
4D Effects:Haptic seats vibrate and emit tones to match the on-screen action, like ominous pulses during the haunted forest scenes or booming tremors when the Wizard speaks.
-
Experiential Elements:The atrium of the venue will be transformed into an Oz-like atmosphere with interactive elements, and some areas will feature scent and other physical effects.
-
Partnership:The Sphere partnered with Google Cloud and Sphere Studios, with Google providing the AI expertise to train the models for the expanded visuals.
-
Nostalgia and New Connections:The experience aims to evoke nostalgia while also creating new connections with the film for audiences of all ages.
-
Section 306 (Center):Often called the “sweet spot,” providing an excellent central view of the screen and characters, plus a good chance for falling apples.
-
Seats in these central section’s offer a great balance of immersion and the special effects, including apple drops.
- Lower Rows of 200s (e.g., 206): You’ll feel the wind and other effects more intensely, with incredible detail, though you might miss some upper visuals.
- Section 400s (e.g., 406, 407): These higher seats provide sweeping, panoramic views of the entire screen and ceiling effects, often at a lower cost, but with fewer apple opportunities.
So, at the first half of this show we will show you clips from the movie filmed from the exact center section, and the second half of this show we will show you clips from the extreme left section: 
This way you can experience the film and special effects from both seat locations so that you can judge for yourself where you may want to sit.
So, on this show there are a few classic iconic scenes from this movie, including the “We’re off to see the Wizard” and the “Lions & Tigers & Bears- OH MY!” scenes, along with: getting in the giant green door of Emerald City, and then meeting the Wizard of Oz in Emerald City.
The incredible HD 16k modern upgrade of the original 1939 Movie : The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere in Las Vegas- is an amazing experience that you can now see on a round curved gigantic dome screen that surrounds you to engulf you in the movie, with 1600 gigantic audio speakers and 165,400 smaller speakers, with a 162 thousand square foot movie screen: 
that is inside an indoor stadium that can hold up to 18,000 people- the size of a major basketball indoor sports & concert arena, with a movie screen that is the size of 4 football fields: 
Along with VIP Suites with food and drinks: 
So, on this show you will see and experience how there is additional footage added to all 4 sides of each frame of the movie- that has never been shown before: 
and your seats move in sync with what is shown in each scene, with smoke, fog, fire, lights, and special effects that make you feel that you are going up in a tornado with Dorothy herself- with clouds, and a powerful wind machine and thousands of brown leaves that blow out at you, large flying monkeys that fly over you, and in the scene where the talking trees throw apples at Dorothy: 
and the Cowardly Lion: 
and the Scarecrow: 
and the Tin Man: 
500 foam apples are thrown at the audience- so that if you are lucky enough to catch one, it would make for a great souvenir! This is an experience that you will never forget! 
When you are watching the iconic scene when Dorothy and her friends are walking on the Yellow Brick Road as they are arriving in Emerald City, you can see added footage to the left and right, and top and bottom of each frame of film, with some beautiful landscapes with trees, birds, and dears that are added to the left and right of the frame; and more grass, and Yellow Brick Road added on the bottom of the frame; and mountains, clouds, and beautiful sky that are added to the top of the frame of film: 
that you can never see in the original 1939 movie, or on TV, or out on DVD. This is done to every frame of the entire movie, making it an amazing experience for both kids & adults!
The incredible scene when the wicked witch sends her flying monkeys after Dorothy, Tin Man, the Lion, and the Scarecrow- they have really life-like and big flying monkeys right above your head: 
In the beginning of the movie- when it was in black & white- before it turned into beautiful color- when Dorothy arrives into the land of Oz: During the amazing Tornado scene that blows away the entire house that Dorothy flew up in- you feel like you are going up in the Tornado with Dorothy! 
So, during this realistic creation of a tornado, – when they had the super powerful wind turbine machines blowing at the audience- 3 tourists from Germany who were in the first row in our section had to move back with us in the 6th row, because the winds were so strong that they couldn’t take it! That’s how real the movie’s special effects make you feel!
The ticket price is way above any other movie ticket price you would ever have paid, but it is 100% well worth it! This is an experience that you will always remember and never forget! In the photo below I am posing in front of The Wizard’s Caravan, the 4 globes with the 4 main characters inside, and the souvenir gift shop: 
The amazing new technology that is used for this movie is so good that it won the award for new innovation recently- just 2 months ago from today- to the exact day: on February 28th, at The 2026- 37th Annual Producers Guild Awards: Wizard of Oz at Sphere– WINNER of The PGA Innovation Award.
Our news team covered this awards show, and our Entertainment Today TV Show Host: Margie Rey interviewed this award winner on the red carpet at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, California, at the 2026 Producers Guild Awards.
This is all the more reason to go to Las Vegas and see this movie as soon as possible, while they are still showing it! 
Below is the news segment that we did on The Wizard of Oz at Sphere winning the PGA Innovation Award on that night of February 28th, 2026:
The PGA Innovation Award was given to: The Wizard of Oz at Sphere that is a 2025 American 4D film. It is an “immersive” version of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s 1939 musical fantasy film The Wizard of Oz, created specifically to be screened at Sphere in the Las Vegas Valley on the venue’s 160,000 square-foot video screen at 16K resolution! 
I took the photo below of the Sphere that was taken from The High Roller Wheel, about a 1/4 of a mile away, from 550 feet up in the air:
To fit the venue’s capabilities, the film’s visuals were enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI), the musical score was re-recorded, preserving Herbert Stothart’s original 1939 compositions, and multi-sensory effects were added to immerse audiences. 
It is the third film to be screened at the venue under the “Sphere Experience” program, following Darren Aronofsky’s 2023 documentary Postcard from Earth and the 2024 concert film V-U2 that depicts U2’s residency at Sphere. 
& as you can see in the above photo: coming soon to the Sphere Experience will be the Radio City Hall Rockettes! 
The photo below is of the Wicked Witch of the East, from the part of the movie when Dorothy’s house dropped on the Witch and crushed her, as you can see the Ruby Red Slippers, and legs going out from the bottom of the Sphere. The Wicked Witch of the East’s legs installed at the Las Vegas Sphere are 50 feet long. The attached iconic ruby red slippers measure 22 feet tall. These massive, inflatable replicas, which appear to be crushed beneath the venue, are roughly 30 times larger than a standard size-6 shoe: 
The Wizard of Oz at Sphere began screening on August 28, 2025, and is scheduled to run until March 31, 2026 (more shows have been added – so it is still playing as of the date of this news story- so get your tickets NOW – before this show comes to an end). Critics were polarized by the film, with many praising the immersive aspects but criticizing the quality of the AI-generated visuals.
I saw this movie twice in 2025, and I can confirm how great the new technology is: the video quality, AI tech, and added special effects! I especially liked the simulation of a real Tornado, that makes you feel like you are going up in the Tornado with Dorothy. They use a powerful wind turbine machine with winds blowing at you, white smoke & fog just like a real Tornado, lighting, scents, seat vibrations, pulsing sounds, and brown paper leaves that blow at you! 
The part of the movie where the talking trees in the forest through apples at Dorothy and her friends- they simulate by dropping foam apples on you, that make great souvenirs! They even have flying Monkeys that fly right over your head, using drones! It is an amazing experience that everyone should see at least once! 
So, make sure to get to the Sphere early, as there are so many things to see & do before and after the movie.
As you can see in the photo below there are some great souvenir gift shops where you can find some unique gifts:
that you can’t find anywhere else: 
as in the below photo: I am standing in front of one of the gift shops posing in front of The Wizard’s “Professor Marvel” wagon, the 4 globes with the 4 main characters inside, and the souvenir gift shop, holding up my favorite gift: 
After you see the movie, there is a 5 minute show you can watch – just outside of the doors of the theater, where there are live actors, that recreate the classic scene when Dorothy asks the Wizard for help, and if you are lucky you may be one of 3 people chosen to have the Wizard grant your wish!, as you can see in the below photo the lucky woman in the middle, with the Wizard holding the Witch’s Broomstick on the left, and his assistant on the right. At the end of this show you can see when the woman presented the Witch’s Broomstick to a giant sized above video of the Wizard- that is an exact copy of the video of the Wizard- in the movie, and he can talk back to you live when you ask him to grant your wish:
They have an exact replica of the Wizard’s control room that was in his Chamber in the movie: 
that the Wizard used when he hid behind the green curtain:
that has exact copies of all the devices in the control room, that was used in the original 1939 movie, but with a few added modern era devices that were not yet invited back in 1939:
and below you can see me & my friend posing in front of it:
Finally in the below photo, as you go up the escalator to your seats, you can see one of the most iconic Robots from a 1950s classic science fiction movie is: Gort from “The Day the Earth Stood Still “(1951); and the #1 most iconic Robot from a 1950s classic science fiction movie is: Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet (1956). Known for his distinctive domed head and personality, Robby was designed by Robert Kinoshita and appeared in various films and television shows: 
- Film Debut: The song was introduced in the film The Wizard of Oz.
- Signature Song: It became Judy Garland’s signature song and remained a key part of her career.
- Recordings: Garland recorded the song for the movie on October 7, 1938, with a subsequent studio recording released by Decca Records in 1939.
Awards: It was a critical success and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning Best Original Song for “Over the Rainbow” and Best Original Score for MGM composer Herbert Stothart; and an Academy Juvenile Award was presented to Judy Garland. The 1956 television broadcast premiere of the film on CBS reintroduced it to the public. I still remember as a very small boy, in the early to mid 1960’s watching that movie with my family, when “the girl next door”- my friend Debbie, walked over to us and knocked on our door to ask if she can come in to watch the movie- right when the portion of the movie was turning into color when Dorothy was landing in Oz, from the black & white portion that was still at her home in Kansas. Since way back then we were literally the “1st. house on the block to have a color TV set.” Debbie knew that on a black & white TV set- there would be no color- so she came right over when the movie was about to turn into a “beautiful living color”! My parents said: yes Debbie could come in, but then her parents came over to scold Debbie- telling her that she should NOT do that, and to come back home with them, but the truth was Debbie’s parents also really wanted to see the movie themselves in color! But my parents insisted that they all stay, and join us to watch this great movie together. Every year I think for most of my life- I watched this movie, and back in the early showings when it had a celebrity host at the start of the movie, so it was a great experience to again to see this movie with all the added special effects, and in a video quality that was not even invented back then: HD 16K- on a movie screen that is the size of 4 football fields! According to the U.S. Library of Congress, it is the most seen film in movie history. In 1989, it was selected by the Library of Congress as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. It is also one of the few films on UNESCO’s Memory of the World international register. It was ranked second in Variety‘s inaugural 100 Greatest Movies of All Time list published in 2022. It has become the source of many quotes referenced in contemporary popular culture. It frequently ranks on critics’ lists of the greatest films of all time and is the most commercially successful adaptation of Lyman Frank Baum’s work. The 1939 Decca recording of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1981. “Over the Rainbow” was inspired by a desire for escape, hope, and a dream of a better world, reflecting both the sociocultural hardships of the Great Depression and the personal, creative expressions of its Jewish composers. The song emerged during the final years of the Great Depression, a period when many Americans faced economic hardship and a yearning for escapism.
This movie was written in 1939 with a strong set of lyrics about escaping beyond the rainbow to a land “where the clouds are far behind,” the song’s appeal continues to this day and has captured the hearts of millions of people along the way. The lyrics reflect a longing for a distant, idealized place where troubles vanish, capturing the emotional desires of a generation seeking comfort and optimism: 
When a tornado rips through Kansas, Dorothy (Judy Garland) and her dog, Toto, are whisked away in their house to the magical land of Oz. They follow the Yellow Brick Road toward the Emerald City to meet the Wizard (Frank Morgan), and en route they meet a Scarecrow (Ray Bolger) that needs a brain, a Tin Man (Jack Haley) missing a heart, and a Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) who wants courage. The wizard asks the group to bring him the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) to earn his help. Release date: August 25, 1939.
“Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high
There’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come trueSomeday I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find meSomewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why, then, oh, why can’t I?Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why, then, oh, why can’t I?If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh, why can’t I?”A look back to when this all started on August 28th, 2025:As Sphere and Warner Bros. announced in April, the new version of The Wizard of Oz is set to open August 28th, 2025 with help from Google and an estimated cost of $80 million. Sphere’s AI-Altered the Wizard of Oz.The most obvious improvements happened in the aspect ratio. The Sphere has a curved 160,000-square-foot screen and seating on a steep grade. Its design means that all 16,000 seats feel surprisingly close to any bands that might be playing, but also by design, nobody has the same view. The 300 section seats would be the best spot to experience everything.
The Sphere is one of the most expensive structures ever built in — and this is important to Las Vegas. The team tasked with the adaptation studied Fleming’s shot list and claims to have meticulously plotted out the world outside the 4:3 box. In the original, for example, Uncle Henry might walk into frame halfway through a scene. Now, Sphere audiences can see him leaning against the front door, listening to the rest of the conversation before deciding to cross the room. The landscape around the house, the wider poppy fields, all will be visualized for the first time.
But that’s not all. This version of The Wizard of Oz has also been digitally restored, smoothing out the graininess to take advantage of one of the world’s most impressive LED screens.Finally, Sphere’s The Wizard of Oz will be immersive, or what they are calling 4D. The CBS News Sunday Morning segment got a look at massive twirling fans that could help some audience members feel like they’re inside a tornado. Bursts of fire have also been promised, as well as fog clouds, haptic seats, and more surprises.
What else might be interactive? Will some audiences get splashed with water when the Wicked Witch is melting? Will the Sphere drop something kind-of sort-of similar to poppy seeds? The Sphere cut of The Wizard of Oz can only be seen in Las Vegas.When the Sphere in Las Vegas opens its doors for The Wizard of Oz next month, visitors to the venue will find themselves in the middle of a twister. And not just because the 160,000 square foot LED screen will wrap around them.
Executives at the Sphere say that its version of the classic 1939 film, which opens Aug. 25, will incorporate immersive, real-world, physical elements “at a scale that I don’t think anyone else has done before,” according to Glenn Derry, executive vp of MSG Ventures, the executive responsible for the technology and physical effects in the venue.That means when that tornado hits Kansas, the 18,000 people inside the Sphere will have wind whipping at their face, leaves flying in front of them, bolts of lightning puncturing the fog and swirling haze that the company will create inside the venue itself.
“One of the big sequences in the film is when we’re transported to Oz from the Gale family farm, right out of the gate at the at the opening of the film, as you transition into color, into Oz,” Derry says. “And we wanted that to be really impactful, something that was truly enormous and huge, and something that they couldn’t have done back when they originally released the film, but that we were able to kind of reimagine what that looked like and felt like, and what it actually feels like to be there.
“I wanted it to feel massive, because it’s a massive space. We have 13 million cubic feet of air in the Sphere,” he adds. “How do you do that in a way that doesn’t distract from the film, but actually adds to the immersion and makes it feel like you’re in there? I think we’ve hit that mark. It’s really fun.”
Derry says that his team created a custom rig that layers in fog, haze, and leaves, before turning on 12 foot tall 750 horsepower fans, created from electric vehicle motors. “We do that piece by piece by piece, kind of like an orchestra,” Derry says. “We create a really great giant sort of plume that fills the whole venue with this kind of lovely cloud, basically, so it’s like you’re going into a dream sequence.”
The tornado, of course, is just the beginning. Once Dorothy gets to Oz, she has to deal with the Wizard, and the Wicked Witch of the West. In the film, towering flames and smoke introduce the Wizard, whose ghostly projection declares “I am Oz, the great and powerful!” Derry says that those flames will be present in room as visitors to the Sphere are introduced to the character: “You want to see the flames, so let’s bring that in, let’s feel some of that heat,” Derry says. “Let’s see what that was like for them to stand there and face Oz.” And later in the film, when the witch dispatches the flying monkeys, Derry’s team found a way to create actual winged creatures that will fly over the audience’s head.
“We’ve had to develop systems to be able to enable them to invade the space and could come at you from above and beyond,” he says. “It’s been a lot of fun to try to figure out, again, how to do that in a venue of this size and scope and scale in a way that’s compelling. OZ expands into 3D space, combining a reimagined high-definition, AI-enhanced version of the film, a re-recorded score, and those physical elements, making it a top priority for chairman James Dolan, who originally conceived of the Sphere.“There were some things that our chairman was just dead set on. The tornado was one of them. Our Winged Monkeys was another one. These were things that were kind of part of his vision for what this experience would be out of the gate,” Derry says. “We have other moments where we’re peppering in other flying creatures and different kinds of fun moments, like apples appearing from nowhere when they’re thrown at Scarecrow and Dorothy, right before they rescue the tin man.”
Sphere, along with its partners at Warner Bros. Discovery, Google (which contributed its artificial intelligence expertise) and Magnopus, are betting that those moments will leave audiences with dropped jaws, creating an experience that can’t be replicated anywhere else on Earth, transporting visitors from the Las Vegas desert to the Emerald City.Thank you for watching this video show, the 3 YouTube videos, and reading the whole story with some great photos, and we hope you can go to Las Vegas very soon to see this incredible movie: The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere, so you can enjoy an experience you will always remember!
