Phi Entertainment
Blending the fun and thrill of cinema with the intellectual sophistication and artistic richness of theatre in a planetarium venue.
The Night the Room Learned to Breathe
I Saw the Future of Entertainment in 2006 (And Las Vegas Just Caught Up)
How a 2006 dome epiphany outgrew the Sphere—before it existed
Picture this: the year 2006, when the digital universe was still learning to crawl.
Mark Zuckerberg was wrestling with the question of whether non-college students deserved access to his social network. Netflix employees were stuffing red envelopes with DVDs and sending them through the mail. The iPhone was still just a twinkle in Steve Jobs' eyes. And there I was, hunched over blueprints, sketching plans for Phi Entertainment—a venture so audacious that when I unveiled it, investors looked at me like I'd suggested colonizing Mars with hot air balloons.
Seventeen years later, when the Sphere opened in Las Vegas, my phone wouldn't stop buzzing. Old colleagues, investors who'd passed, friends who'd politely nodded while thinking I was insane—they all had the same message: "You called it."
Well, yes and no. The Sphere is magnificent, a genuine marvel that's redefining entertainment. But here's the thing: it's only a fraction of what I envisioned. The Sphere is what happens when you take one brilliant idea and lock it into a single format. Phi Entertainment was about creating spaces that could transform, evolve, and democratize transcendent experiences.
The Pink Floyd Epiphany That Started Everything
I need to tell you about the night everything changed. I was at a Pink Floyd laser show in a planetarium in Bogotá—one of those legendary experiences where "Dark Side of the Moon" meets cosmic visuals. But while everyone else was lost in the music and colors, I was having an epiphany that hit me like lightning:
Everyone was obsessed with making screens bigger and flatter. But what if the screen disappeared entirely?
As the lasers traced impossible geometries across the dome, as the music seemed to emanate from the stars themselves, I saw it: This wasn't just entertainment. This was transportation. This was transformation. And it was barely scratching the surface of what was possible.
Standing under that dome, I didn't see a projection surface—I saw a portal. While Hollywood was fighting over whether Blu-ray or HD-DVD would win (remember that battle?), I was imagining audiences not watching stories but living inside them.
The planetarium dome wasn't outdated technology gathering dust in science museums. It was the most advanced immersive platform on Earth, hiding in plain sight. And I was going to unlock its potential.
The Shape-Shifting Theater That Would Have Changed Everything
Here's what nobody else was thinking about in 2006—and what the Sphere still doesn't do: adaptability.
The Sphere is spectacular, but it's frozen. One configuration. One setup. One way to experience it. My vision for Phi Entertainment was radically different. I designed theaters that could literally transform based on the performance.
For concerts
Imagine the artist choosing to perform in the center of the dome, with the audience surrounding them in 360 degrees, the music visualizations exploding outward from the source. Or picture the band on the periphery, with the dome becoming a living canvas that extends their performance into impossible dimensions. The seating could shift and reconfigure—intimate for acoustic sets, expansive for symphonies, circular for immersive experiences.
For nightclubs
The DJ could rise from the center on a platform that itself became part of the visual experience, or command from the edge while the entire dome became a pulsing, breathing organism of light and sound. The floor could transform from traditional dance space to terraced levels, to lounging areas, adapting to the vibe of each night.
For theatrical productions
Actors could perform in the round, with scenery that existed not as painted flats but as living environments surrounding everyone. Or they could use the periphery as a stage while the dome transported the audience to impossible worlds—inside a living cell, across alien landscapes, through the dreams of the characters themselves.
This wasn't just flexibility—it was revolution. One venue that could be a thousand different experiences. While the Sphere does one thing brilliantly, Phi Entertainment would have done many, transcendently.
The Morphing Architecture of Wonder
The engineering vision I had was so far ahead that I still get excited thinking about it. Modular seating on tracks that could reconfigure in minutes. Stages that could emerge from the floor or descend from the dome. Projection mapping that could adapt to any configuration, making every surface a canvas.
Think about it: Saturday morning: a family friendly planetarium show, then in the afternoon, a classical concert with the orchestra in traditional configuration while the dome becomes a living visualization of the music, or perhaps a theatrical production akin to something by Cirque du Soleil that uses every inch of the space to tell stories that couldn't exist anywhere else and visuals in the dome transporting the audience to wondrous imaginary places, then in the evening, a nightclub configuration with the dance floor in the center and elevated VIP areas around the periphery. This venue will be in operation most of the day, generating revenues much larger than those offered by a rigid venue like that of the Sphere.
One space. Infinite possibilities. That was the Phi Entertainment difference.
The Nightclub Revolution I Almost Started
You want to know my favorite configuration? The nightclub metamorphosis—the transformation that still gives me goosebumps when I close my eyes and dream.
Imagine this: You walk into what looks like an ordinary venue. The DJ drops the beat. Suddenly, the walls dissolve. The ceiling becomes a living, breathing organism of light and color. The floor transforms into an ocean of stars. You're not in a room anymore—you're inside the music itself, dancing in a dimension that shouldn't exist.
But here's the kicker—depending on the night, the experience could be completely different. A jazz night might have the band in the center with the dome creating an intimate, smoky atmosphere that seems to breathe with the bass line. An EDM night could put the DJ on the periphery with the entire dome becoming a throbbing visualization that makes you feel like you're dancing inside a living kaleidoscope.
This wasn't pie-in-the-sky dreaming. I had the technology mapped out, the partnerships lined up, the modular designs that would let venues transform themselves night after night, giving people a reason to come back again and again because it would never be the same experience twice.
The Shows That Would Have Redefined Performance
I wasn't interested in making prettier planetarium shows about Jupiter. I wanted to create experiences that would rewire how humans understood entertainment itself.
Our flagship production was going to demonstrate the full versatility of the platform:
Act One
Traditional theater configuration with the stage at the periphery, but as the story progressed, the dome would slowly engulf the narrative.
Act Two
The performance space would shift to theater-in-the-round, with actors emerging from the audience as the dome created environments that responded to their movements.
Act Three
The entire space would become the stage, with no distinction between performer and audience space—everyone inside the story together.
"Far removed from the ordinary world."
Not escaped from it. Not distracted from it. Removed from it. Transported so completely that returning to reality would feel like waking from the most vivid dream you'd ever had.
Why Static Venues Are Already Obsolete
When the Sphere opened, proving that audiences hunger for immersive experiences, part of me wanted to celebrate—finally, validation! But mostly, I felt a profound sense of what could have been.
The Sphere proved the market existed. But it also proved the limitations of thinking in fixed terms. One configuration. One type of experience. It's like building the world's most expensive Swiss Army knife and only pulling out one blade.
Phi Entertainment would have been different:
- Infinite configurations from a single venue
- Multiple experience types attracting diverse audiences
- Constant evolution keeping the experience fresh
- Scalable globally because the modular design could adapt to any space
We weren't building monuments. We were building living, breathing spaces that could transform as radically as the imaginations of the artists who used them.
The Artists Who Immediately Got It
Not everyone thought I was crazy. I had conversations with musicians who immediately understood that performing inside a transformable dome would let them create different shows every night. Visual artists who saw the morphing space as the ultimate canvas. Theater directors who realized they could finally break every conventional rule about staging.
One electronic music producer told me: "This isn't just a venue. It's a musical instrument you can walk inside." He wanted to design shows specifically for each configuration, creating experiences that evolved as the space transformed around the audience.
A Broadway director nearly cried when I showed her the theater-in-the-round configuration that could shift to proscenium and back during a single performance. "I long for this," she said.
We were building a coalition of visionaries. Artists who understood that fixed spaces create fixed thinking, but transformable spaces create infinite possibilities.
What the Sphere Proves (And What It Doesn't)
Don't get me wrong—I have massive respect for what the Sphere achieved. U2's residency was transcendent. The Formula 1 footage makes you feel like you're in the driver's seat. They proved that immersive entertainment isn't a gimmick—it's a fundamental shift in how humans want to experience stories.
But the Sphere also proves the limitations of thinking in concrete rather than possibilities. It's magnificent at what it does, but it only serves one spectacle.
Phi Entertainment was never about building the world's most expensive anything. It was about creating spaces that could become anything, that could evolve with artists' visions, that could surprise audiences every single time.
The Vision That Won't Die
You know what? I'm not done.
The technology is exponentially better now. The market is proven. The hunger for immersive experiences has only grown. And the core insight—that venues should transform rather than constrain—is more relevant than ever.
Think about what's happened since 2006:
- Projection technology has become incredibly sophisticated and affordable
- Automated staging and seating systems are commonplace in theaters
- Audiences expect personalization and unique experiences
- Artists are desperate for venues that can match their creative ambitions
- The Sphere proved people will pay premium prices for transformation
We could launch Phi Entertainment tomorrow with venues that make the Sphere look like a fixed-position telescope in an age of space stations. Not because we'd spend more, but because we'd think bigger about what "venue" even means.
My Open Letter to the Entertainment Industry
To everyone building VR headsets that isolate people, designing "metaverse" experiences that feel like lonely video games, or creating billion-dollar venues that do one thing—you're thinking too rigidly.
Entertainment isn't about technology or real estate. It's about possibility. It's not about building the perfect venue—it's about building venues that can become perfect for any vision, any artist, any audience, any night.
Phi Entertainment understood this in 2006. We designed spaces that could breathe and evolve, that could be intimate on Tuesday and infinite on Wednesday, that could host a corporate presentation at noon and transport people to other dimensions at midnight.
The dome is still the answer. Not because it's high-tech, but because it's human. It surrounds you the way dreams do, the way imagination does, the way the universe itself does. And when that dome can transform, when the space itself becomes part of the performance, when every configuration creates new possibilities—that's when entertainment transcends into art.
The Future I Still See
Close your eyes and imagine walking into a Phi Entertainment venue in 2030:
Tonight, it's configured for a concert. The artist has chosen center stage, and as you enter, you see seats arranged in a perfect circle, the dome dark above. The show begins. The artist is at the heart of a universe they're creating in real-time, with visuals exploding outward, making you feel like you're inside the music.
Come back next week. Same door, same dome, completely different universe. Now it's a theater production, and the seats have shifted to face the periphery where actors perform while the dome creates worlds that react to their every word. The tragic death scene doesn't just happen on stage—the entire universe mourns with visual poetry that surrounds everyone.
Next month? It's a nightclub. The floor is clear for dancing, the DJ booth rises from where the center stage was, and the entire dome has become a living, breathing entity that pulses with the beat. You're not in a club—you're dancing inside a living organism of light and sound.
That's what I wanted to give the world in 2006. That's what I still want to give it now.
Phi Entertainment 2.0
That night at the Pink Floyd laser show, when I first saw this future, I understood something fundamental: humans don't want to watch experiences—they want to be inside them. But more than that, they want variety, surprise, transformation. They want venues that can match the infinite variety of human creativity.
The Sphere spent billions to prove I was right about immersion. But they only got half the equation. The other half—the transformation, the adaptability, the infinite possibility—that's still waiting to be built.
The planetariums are still there, waiting to be transformed. The technology has surpassed my wildest 2006 dreams. The audience is hungry. The artists are ready. The vision remains clear.
Phi Entertainment wasn't just about projecting images on domes. It was about creating spaces as flexible as imagination itself, about making every night a premiere, about giving artists canvases that could match their wildest dreams.
That vision didn't die in 2006. It just waited. And now, as I watch the Sphere struggle with the limitations of its fixed format, as I see audiences craving experiences that surprise them, as I witness artists constrained by venues that can't match their visions—I know the time has finally come.
The dome is still waiting. But more importantly, the transformation Phi Entertainment imagined—venues that breathe, evolve, surprise, and transcend—is more possible than ever.
And me? I'm still here, still dreaming, still knowing that the best ideas aren't the ones that build monuments—they're the ones that build possibilities.
The revolution I started planning in 2006? It's not over.
It's finally ready to dance.
Want to know more about Phi Entertainment's vision for transformable venues? Want to be part of making spaces that can become anything? The future doesn't wait for permission. Neither should we.
The dome is calling. The transformation is waiting. Are you ready to answer?