Latest / The Infographics Show Podcast / The $2.3 Billion Gamble: Why Las Vegas’ Sphere is Failing

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The $2.3 Billion Gamble: Why Las Vegas’ Sphere is Failing · The Infographics Show Podcast

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to another beyond infographic KFE. Today we're what
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: we are literally staring into the sun.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: The artificial sun anyway, right, the.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Artificial sun, or more accurately, the largest artificial sun on
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: planet Earth.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Is it's bright. It is aggressively, unavoidably bright.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you've been anywhere near the Western United States recently,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: or honestly, if you've just been on Internet in the
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: last two years, you know exactly what we're talking about today.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: You absolutely have seen it.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: It is the single most viral building in human history.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: We are talking about the Las Vegas Sphere.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Which is really a triumph of the phrase because we can't.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Exactly It's a three hundred and sixty six foot tall
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: orb It is wrapped in five hundred and eighty thousand
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: square feet of LED lights.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Which is just a crazy number.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Right, and it's visible from space. I mean, it makes
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the Pyramids of Giza look well a little bit subtle.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: It really does. I mean, you've seen it turn into
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: a giant eyeball on social media. You've seen it turn
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: into a pumpkin for.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Halloween, snow globe for Christmas, right.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: The snow globe. It is a technological Marvel. There is
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: absolutely no disputing that.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: No, none at all. And on the surface, this thing
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: looks like this massive victory lab for humanity. It looks
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: like the future of entertainment just sort of dropped out
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: of the sky and landed right on the Las Vegas Strip.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate shiny object.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: It really is. It's shiny, it's new. Everyone is talking
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: about it. But and yet there is always a butt
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: on this show.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: There always is.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: We aren't here today to review the light show. We
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: aren't here to talk about how cool the emoji face
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: looks on Instagram.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: No, we are here to talk about the Ledger exactly.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: We are here to talk about the bank account because
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: for all of you listening, we want to get past
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the shiny exterior and look at what is actually happening
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: behind the screens.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: And the bank count is uh, well, it looks like
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: a disaster movie.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: That is putting it mildly. While the sphere looks like
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the year twenty fifty. On the outside of the app,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: the finances looked like a complete panic attack.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they really do.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: We are talking about a project that was originally budgeted
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: at one point two billion dollars.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Which is already a massive number, right.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Well, one point two billion is already an insane amount
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: of money for a concert venue.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: But it didn't stay there, No.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: It ballooned. It ballooned aggressively.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: It ballooned to two point three billion dollars. That is
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: a ninety one percent cost overrun.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Just to put that in perspective for you for a second.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: That overrun alone, just the extra money they spent that
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: they did not plan to spend is enough to build
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: two or maybe three state of the art NBA arenas.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Just the extra money, just.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: The oops, we made a mistake money.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: It's staggering. And the bleeding didn't stop once the construction
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: ended either. Shortly after it opened, the company posted a
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: loss of nearly one hundred million dollars in a single
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: court in a single quarter, ninety eight point four million
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: to be exact.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And this is where the drama really kicks in for
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: our deep dive today.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the corporate drama, right.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Because the CFO, the exact person responsible for the money.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Quick and the reports surrounding that departure are incredibly telling. Reportedly,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: he quit after being screened at by the CEO, James Dolan.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: So we have a two point three billion dollar glowing orb.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: We have a CEO yelling at his executives and a
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: bank account that is hemorrhaging cash.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: It is a very expensive mystery, it really is.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Ye. So the mission for today's deep dive is simple.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: We need to answer one fundamental question for you. Can
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: a venue that costs two point three billion to build
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: but has no casino, no hotel, and sits empty for
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: huge chunks of the year actually survive or.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Is this just the world's most expensive mistake?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Right? So we're going to break this down into three
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: specific failures based on all the sources we've reviewed. We're
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: going to look at the engineering trap, the content bottleneck,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and finally, the financial blief.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Let's start with the building itself.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I want to start there, Yeah, because I think
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: this is where the misconception really starts for most of us.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: You look at it, you think, wow, cool screen, best
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: venue ever.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: But the screen itself is the core problem.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Unpack that for me, because if I'm buying a ticket
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: to a show and the venue has the highest resolution
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: screen in the history of the world, shouldn't that be
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the best place on earth to see a concert?
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: You would logically think so, But this is what we
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: call the screen first venue second paradox. You have to
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: understand how a concert actually works. Okay, think about a
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: standard arena show. You go to see a band at
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Madison Square Garden or the Two in London. What is
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: the environment like.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: It's dark. It's basically a black box exactly.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: It is a cavern. You hang trusses from the ceiling.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: You point lights at the band. You use front light
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: to see their faces back late to separate them from
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: the background.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: It's just rock and roll one zero one.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: The physics are simple. Darkness plus light equals focus.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Makes sense.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Now, imagine you are inside the sphere, the entire building,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: the walls, the seal, everything around you.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Is a light source because the walls are the screen.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, you are essentially standing inside a giant light bulb.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm picturing it. It sounds immersive.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: It's almost too immersive. If you turn that screen on
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: to show those incredible visuals, the ambient light in the
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: room skyrockets. It becomes incredibly bright in there, so it
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: washes out the band, completely washes them out. If the
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: screen is doing its job, the band looks like shadowy
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: ghosts down on the stage. They essentially disappear.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: But here is the catch. If you try to fix
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: that by blasting the band with traditional spotlights, big heavy
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: touring lights to make them visible, that light spills everywhere.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Oh I see, it hits the screen.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: It hits the screen, and it washes out the image.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: So the building physically fights itself. The screen fights the stage.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: It is a physics conflict albedo reflection emission. They are
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: all at war inside the stone. You cannot have a
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: perfect black level on the screen and a bright spotlight
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: on the singer at the same time in that specific geometry.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: And this isn't just theoretical, is it? When you two
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: was preparing to open the venue, they ran into this immediately.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: You two was absolutely the guinea pig for this venue.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Which makes sense. They always pushed tech right.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: And the venue had a built in lighting system. The
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: engineers told them, look, we built this state of the
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: art lighting rig.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Just use this, and what did you two say?
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Their production team took one look at it, tested it,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: and realized it was essentially useless for a rock show
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: in that environment.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: So what do they do? Two? Isn't exactly a band
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: that plays in the dark.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: They completely scrapped the house system. They had to build
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: a custom lighting rig from scratch for.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: A brand new, two billion dollar building.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, and this wasn't an afternoon job. It took them
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: fifty days.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Of testing, way fifty days.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Fifty days. Just think about the burn rate of a
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: massive production crew living in Las Vegas for fifty days.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: That is insane.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: They sat in that venue tweaking dimmer switches, moving trusses,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out how to light a human being
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: inside a television without ruining the picture.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: That is almost two months of rent effectively just to.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Figure out the lights, and that time costs an absolute fortune.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: But it highlights the core issue with the building. The
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: sphere was designed for the keynote. It was designed for
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: the tech demo, like an Apple event exactly. It's perfect
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: if you want to stand on a small stage and
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: show a giant graph behind you. But it wasn't really
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: designed for the practical, messy reality of a touring rock
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: band that needs mood and shadow.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: And it's not just the lights, is it. I was
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: looking at the notes on the resolution issues. Yeah, and
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: this part really surprised me because I assumed high resolution
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: is always better.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: That's the consumer mindset, right.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Like, when I buy a TV, I want the biggest number,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: four KAK whatever.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: In consumer electronics, yes, a bigger number usually means a
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: better picture. But in production, in the world of actually
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: making content, a bigger number means a data nightmare.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, why is that?
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Well, the Sphere has a sixteen K.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Resolution screen, which sounds amazing.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: It sounds amazing until you ask one simple question, where
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: is the content? Oh, Hollywood movies, even the biggest blockbusters
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: like Avengers or Avatar are generally finished in four K,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: maybe six K if they are really pushing the envelope.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: So even the best cameras in the world aren't capturing
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: enough detail to fill this screen nowhere near it.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: If you took a standard blu ray of the Avengers
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: and plate it on the Sphere, it would look blurry.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: It would look like a pixelated mosaic.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: So you essentially have a VR headset problem.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: That is the perfect analogy. You know, when you buy
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: a brand new VR headset. The hardware is incredible, but
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: there are no games for it yet.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it just sits on the desk.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: That is the Sphere. You cannot just plug in a
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: laptop and play a movie. You can't even play a
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: standard IMAX movie.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: So if I want to put something on that screen,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I have to make.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: It from scratch, not just mate, you have to manufacture it.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: We are talking about upscaling using AI. We are talking
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: about massive rendering farms. You have to reconstruc rupt images
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: to fit a curved sixteen K surface.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I want to pause on rendering farms for a second.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: For you listening who might not do three D animation?
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: What does that actually mean in practice?
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Think about your home computer exporting a short video you
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: made on your phone. It takes a few minutes, right sure.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: To render a single frame of sixteen K footage for
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: the Sphere can take hours of computing.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Time hours for one frame, and a.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Show has twenty four or maybe sixty frames every single second.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, the math gets out of control immediately. You
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: need literal supercomputers just to generate the video five So.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I definitely can't just rent the Sphere for my birthday
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: and play Mario Kart.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: You definitively cannot play Mario Kart. The latency alone would
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: make it unplayable, but the resolution would look terrible anyway,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: got it? And this brings us to a specific incident
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: that really revealed just how fragile this whole system is.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Do you remember the crowd strikeoutage?
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, July twenty twenty four, the day the Earth
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: stood still. Basically, airports shut down, banks went offline.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Right now. In a normal concert venue, say T Mobile
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Arena just down the street in Vegas, the lights and
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: sound are usually controlled by.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: A local board, like a physical mixing desk.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly, It's a closed loop. If the global internet goes down,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: the show goes on. The guy at the lighting board
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: just keeps pushing the physical faders.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: It's hardware, it switches and cables.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: But the sphere is not a normal building. The sphere
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: is a distributed computing system that just happens to have
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: seats inside it.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: That is a wild way to think about it.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: It relies entirely on external cloud computing. It relies on
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: complex software pipelines. So when CrowdStrike hit, local media and
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Vegas reported seeing the blue screen of death on the displays.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: No way at the literal Windows blue screen of death
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: on the world's biggest.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Screen systems completely failed because a software update glitch three
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: states away in a data center knocked.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Out the venue That is crazy.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: It revealed a terrifying vulnerability. This building is an IoT device.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: It's an Internet of Things device the size of a stadium.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: That has to be a terrifying thought for a promoter. Yeah,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: imagine you have eighteen thousand people waiting in their seats
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: for a show and you can't start because your building
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: is forcing a Windows update.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: It's the difference between analog reliability and digital fragility. And
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: we haven't even talked about the physical experience of the
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: people sitting in those seats yet.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, let's talk about the seats. Because if I'm paying
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: over the p prices four thousand dollars for a ticket easily,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: If I'm paying that, I expect absolute perfection. I expect
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to see God.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Essentially, you expect to see the screen at the very
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: least right.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: But that didn't happen for everyone, did it.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: No, it's a geometry problem. To make a sphere, the
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: walls have to curve inward at the top and bottom.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: That's just basic math, okay. But to fit enough people
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: inside a sphere to make money, you have to stack
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: the seating decks vertically. You have to build steep balconies
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: to get the capacity up.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm visualizing the cross section. It's very steep.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: So if you are in the lower lefe the one
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: hundred section, which are usually the premium seats in any
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: other arena, you are tucked underneath the overhang of the
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: two hundred section.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Oh I see where this is going. It's like sitting
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: under the balcony at an old Broadway theater.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Exactly like that. But in an old theater, the show
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: is down on the stage in the sphere. The show
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: is above you on the ceiling. Oh no, So if
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: you sat in the back of the one hundreds, the
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: concrete overhang physically blocked your view of the top half
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: of the screen.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: You paid four thousand dollars and you had a concrete
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: roof in your face.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Precisely, VIP tickets costing thousands of dollars had totally obstructed views.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Management actually had to issue refunds.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: That is a massive oversight.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Think about the design flaw there. You built a screen
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: that wraps around the audience, and then you built seating
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: that blocks the screen.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: It's like building a ferrari and forgetting to put it in
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: a windshield or putting a pillar right in front of
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the driver's face.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: And for the people who could see the screen clearly,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: some of them had a totally different problem.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Motion sickness really like physical throwout motion sickness.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: The fear vertigo. The resolution is so high and the
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: curved screen covers your entire peripheral vision.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Right, so your brain gets tricked.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Your brain absolutely thinks you are moving, but your inner
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: ear knows you're sitting perfectly still in a chair. That
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: sensory disconnect causes intense nausea. People were literally stumbling out
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: of the aisles.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's just recap the engineering trap before we
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: move to the next section. Sure we have a venue
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that washes out. The performer requires literal supercomputers to make
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: the video content crashes like an old PC blocks your view.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: If you pay too much for a ticket, it makes
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: you vomit if you see it perfectly.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: That is a very fair and accurate summary. It is
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: an engineering marvel that simply forgot about the human user.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that's the hardware. But let's say you fix
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: all those glitches, you hand out barf bags, you patch
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: the software, you still need to put a show on
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: the stage.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: And this is the hurdle because This is where.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I got really confused reviewing the source material. Vegas is
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: the entertainment capital of the world. Why don't they just
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: book the biggest stars right now? Why isn't Taylor Swift
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: playing this fear? Why isn't Beyonce doing a weekend there?
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: This brings us to the content bottleneck, and honestly, this
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: is the much bigger problem. Hardware glitches can be patched eventually,
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: but this, this is a fundamental structural business problem.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Why though Taylor Swift plays stadiums, the Fear is basically
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: just a small, tech heavy stadium. Just book her and
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: pay her.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Right, It's a very logical thought, but you have to
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: look at the massive logistics of a modern megator. When
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Taylor Swift or The Weekend or any massive act goes
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: on tour, they are running a military operation, right.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: It's a huge undertaking.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: They have a stage design that fits into fifty or
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: maybe eighty semi trucks. They drive to a city, they
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: unload into a standard rectangular arena or stadium, they plug
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: everything in, they play, they pack it all back up,
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: and they leave for the next city.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: It is a literal factory line.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: It is a machine of pure efficiency and the Sphere.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: The Sphere completely breaks that machine. You cannot bring a
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: standard touring rig into the Sphere.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Because of the lighting issues.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: We talked about the lighting issues. The shape is wrong,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: the stage size is different. To play the Sphere, you
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: have to create a show specifically and only for the Sphere.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: And we already established that creating that custom contact costs
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: millions of dollars.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Estimates put it at around ten million to twenty million
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: dollars just to create the visuals for the screen, just
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: for the video, just for the video, and it takes
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: months of lead time. So play the role of an
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: agent for a second. You represent Taylor Swift.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: I like this job.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: You are currently making thirteen million dollars a night playing
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: massive open air football stadiums with the stage setup you
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: already paid for and own. James Dolan calls you up
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: and says, hey, I want Taylor to play the Sphere,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: but she has to stop her global tour for three months.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: She has to spend twenty million dollars of her own
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: money creating cartoon visuals that she can only ever use
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: in my specific building. Right and oh, by the way,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: she can only sell seventeen thousand tickets a night instead
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: of the seventy thousand she sells at a football stadium.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: I laugh, and I hang up the phone immediately exactly
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: you hang up.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: The math is completely impossible for a current touring superstar, So.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: That rules out basically everyone currently on the Billboard charts.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: It rules out almost all active touring acts, which leaves
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: the venue with one very specific category, the residency.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Right where they just stay put.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: You need an artist who is willing to park themselves
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: in Vegas for weeks or even months just to amortize
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: that twenty million dollar production cost over enough shows to
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: make a profit.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: And according to our sources, that limits the pool to
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: what the music industry calls heritage.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Acts exactly dad rock. Basically, you two the Eagles, Dead
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: and Company.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Fish bands with very specific demographics, bans with.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Wealthy, older f bases who will willingly fly to Vegas,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: stay in a nice, expensive hotel, and pay five hundred
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: to one thousand dollars for a single ticket.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: But there are only so many of those bands left.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: You can't just clone Bono.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: That is the crisis the venue is facing. Once you
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: run through U two and the Eagles and maybe Bruce
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Springsteen who was next?
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Right? The bench is not that deep.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: The pipeline is incredibly thin. You need a band that
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: is huge enough to sell out eighteen thousand seats for
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: twenty consecutive nights, but simultaneously not busy enough to be
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: doing a global stadium tour.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: That is a very very small event diagram.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: It's tiny and because of this, the sphere is only
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: actually utilized roughly thirty three percent of the year.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Well only thirty three percent.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: They only have about one hundred to one hundred and
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: twenty event nights a year with actual live music.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: So what happens when you can't find a band? What
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: happens on a random Tuesday in November when the Eagles
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: aren't in town.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: That is what the industry calls the dark night problem.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: In a normal arena like t Mobile Arena, if there
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: is no major concert, they just book a hockey game
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: the Golden Knights.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Play right, or college basketball.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: If no hockey, maybe a large corporate convention, maybe a
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: monster truck rally.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Can you put monster trucks in the sphere?
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not. The floor space is way too small, There
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: is no exhaust ventilation for the fumes, and again, the
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: logistics just do not work. It's too specialized of a room.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: So when there isn't a megaband, the sphere just sits there.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: It sits there, and it burns money. So to plug
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: that massive scheduling hole, they commissioned a movie.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Right, the Darren Aronofski film Postcard from Earth.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Visually it is stunning. Everyone says it's an incredible piece
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: of art, but economically, economically, it's a disaster waiting to happen.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I though a movie seems like a really smart way
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: to fill the downtime. It's relatively cheap to run once
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: it's already made, Right, you just press play.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: It works for a few months, but you have to
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: think about the core Las Vegas economy. Vegas runs entirely
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: on repeat customers. Okay, you go to the casino, you
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: play blackjack, lose, You come back later that night to
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: win it back. You go watch the Bolaggio fountains because
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: they are free and beautiful and part of the vibe.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: But nobody pays one hundred dollars to see the exact
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: same documentary movie twice.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It is a one and done experience. Once you
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: have seen the giant elephant walk across the screen, in
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: sixteen k you get the gimmick.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: You check the box, and you move on.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: You aren't going back next year on your next Vegas trip,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: and we are already seeing the demand for the movie
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: soften significantly. Really, ticket prices for the movie have actively
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: dropped from around one hundred and nineteen dollars down to
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: ninety nine dollars. Revenue for these film showings is dipping
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: in recent quarters. You simply run out of first time
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: viewers eventually, so.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: You have a venue that is incredibly hard to book
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: for live music and the filler movie content is actively
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: losing steam. Yes, this feels like the perfect time to
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: transition into the third section and talk about the actual money,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: because all of these engineering problems and content problems, they
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: eventually turn into hard numbers on a spreadsheet.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: And the numbers are terrifying.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Let's look at the neighborhood. The sphere is in. You
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: mentioned T Mobile Arena earlier. You've got the MGM Grand nearby.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: How do those traditional buildings make money compared to the sphere.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: This is the critical piece of context that explains the
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: whole Vegas ecosystem. In Las Vegas, the concert venue itself
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: is often what we call a loss leader.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Explain that concept for us.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: MGM doesn't necessarily care if they make a massive profit
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: on the Lady Gaga concert ticket itself. They just want
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: fifteen thousand people to physically walk through the front doors
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: of the MGM Grand property.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Because ones they are an inside.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Because before the show and after the show, those exact
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: people are going to eat expensive dinners at the restaurants,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: they are going to drink twenty dollars cocktails at the bars,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: and most importantly, they are going to gamble in the casino.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: So the concert is basically just the bait on the hook.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Correct. The venue itself is subsidized by the entire resort
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: ecosystem surrounding it. Arena just breaks even. The hotel property
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: makes millions of dollars that night. And the sphere the
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: sphere is a total island. It has no hotel attached
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: to it, It has no casino, it has no sit
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: down restaurants of its own, really just standard concession stands.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Wait, how do you build a two point three billion
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: dollar building in Las Vegas and forget to put in
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: a single slot machine. That seems like total malpractice.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: It was a very deliberate strategic choice or perhaps massive hubris.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: The management believed the ticket sales alone would sustain the building.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: But that means all the pressure is on the ticket.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: It means the Sphere has to survive on exactly three
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: things ticket sales, sponsorships, and those ads on the outside
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: of the.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Building the exosphere the giant emoji face that sells car commercials.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Right, so every single seat inside has to be wildly profitable.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: There is no back end casino revenue to save them.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: And this is exactly where the U two precedent comes
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: back to haunt them.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: I've heard about this part. The deal you two got
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: to open the building was let's say generous.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Generous is an understatement. It was a complete robbery. You
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: two and their management knew they were the only band
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: on Earth that could realistically pull off the grand opening
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: of this highly technical building. They had absolutely all the
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: leverage in the negotiation, So what do they ask for?
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Reports suggest you two negotiated a deal where they took
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: ninety percent of the gross ticket revenue.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, did you just say ninety nine.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Zero ninety percent to the band that leaves the Sphere
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: with ten percent of the gate.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: That is just insane. Usually a promoter splits things, maybe
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: seventy thirty, or they guarantee a flat fee. Yeah, but
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: ninety percent. How do you even pay the electric bill
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: with ten percent of the tickets?
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: You don't? You actively lose money. In speaking of the
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: electric bill, let's talk about the operating costs for a minute.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Please do, because I can't imagine what a cost to
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: run that screen.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: You are running the largest LED screen on planet Earth,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Some fun just to keep the lights on, just.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: For electricity, plus the cooling. All those supercomputer servers generate
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: massive amounts of heat. The HVAC bill is astronomical.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I didn't even think about the heat from the screens.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Plus the staff. Remember we talked about the tech earlier.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: These aren't just normal roadies pushing heavy crates around.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: You need it, guys.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: You need Silicon Valley level software engineers to run this building.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: You need GPU specialists, you need LED calibration experts. These
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: people command massive salaries. They do not work for minimum wage.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: So you have the highest overhead in the entire live
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: entertainment industry, and you simultaneously gave away ninety percent of
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: your revenue to the band.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Correct, And now every other band knows exactly what you
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: two got, So when the Eagles sit down to negotiate,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: they say, well, you two got ninety percent, why should
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: we take fifty percent?
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: The venue is trapped.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: The venue has zero leverage. It absolutely needs the big
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: stars to justify the existence of the expensive screen. It
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: is completely trapped by its own business model.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: So bottom line, how much cash is this thing actually losing?
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: In the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four, they reported
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: an operating loss of one hundred and forty two point nine.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Million dollars in one quarter.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, for the full fiscal year twenty twenty five, the
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: operating loss was two hundred and twenty nine point six
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: million dollars.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in one year.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: And the total accumulated losses since inception are now over
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: five hundred and seventy million dollars.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Half a billion dollars is just gone gone.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: And remember the parent company, Sphere Entertainment, was spun off
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: from Madison Square Garden, but they are still carrying billions
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: in debt to build this thing. This isn't just a
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: slow start for a new business. This is a massive
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: cash incinerator.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: But James Dole in the CEO, he isn't coming out
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: and saying, hey, guys, I messed up? Is he? Because
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I feel like I keep seeing these financial headlines saying
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: fear reports positive income.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Ah, yes the spin. This brings us to section four
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: in corporate finance. When the real numbers are very, very bad,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: you simply invent new numbers. The Wall Street Dolan loves
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: to push a metric called adjusted operating income.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I love adjusted numbers. It's basically like saying, if you
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: ignore the fact that I crashed my car and lost
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: my job, my years actually going great.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: That is a very accurate analogy. Adjusted operating income allows
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: the company to strip out things they don't want you
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: to focus on, like share based compensation and crucially depreciation.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Let's explain depreciation in this specific context because usually for
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a building, that's just a paper tax ride off. Right.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: For a normal brick building, Sure, a concrete arena lasts
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: for fifty or sixty years, it depreciates very slowly over decades, right.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: But the sphere is not concrete. The sphere is pure technology.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: It is five hundred and eighty thousand square feet of
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: LED diodes exposed to the desert sun. Do you know
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: how fast LED's age.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Well, my flat screen TV looks a little dim after
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: about five.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Years, exactly tech ages in dog years. That exterior screen
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: is actively going to burn out. It will constantly need
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: panels replaced. The rendering servers will be completely obsolete in.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Three to five years, So it's a recurring cost.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: The depreciation on the sphere is a very real, very
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: heavy cash expense that is coming down the track like
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: a freight train. Ignoring it is an accounting magic trick.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: It's hiding the reality.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: It makes the business look vaguely viable today only by
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: ignoring the fact that the building is rotting vastly faster
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: than a normal arena.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: So if the Vegas standalone model is broken, what is
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the master plan? Because I remember a few years ago
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: they were going to build these things everywhere, total world domination.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: That was absolutely the plan, a sphere in every major
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: global city, London, Dubai, Soul. But that massive expansion plan
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: hit a very hard wall. Specifically, it hit a.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Wall in London, right city Coon, the Mayor of London
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: blocked it.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: He did, and the reason was fascinating. It wasn't just
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: traffic or infrastructure concerns. It was light pollution and fair
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: enough on the the residence of Stratford, of which is
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: the neighborhood where they wanted to build it. They looked
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: at photos of Vegas. They saw that glowing yellow eyeball
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: and said, absolutely not.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I don't like that.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: We do not want a permanent artificial sun shining directly
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: into our apartment bedrooms at three in the morning.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: It turns out normal everyday people actually like darkness when
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: they sleep. Who knew?
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: And that rejection completely kills the scalability of the entire
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: business model. If you can only legally build these things
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: in the middle of a neon desert where nobody lives,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: your potential market is very very limited.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: So now what are they just giving up?
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: Now? They are pivoting, pivoting to what exactly mini spheres.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: They are currently talking about building much smaller versions, maybe
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: only six thousand seats instead of eighteen thousand in places
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: like National Harbor near DC. Okay, smaller might be cheaper
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: or franchising one in Abi Dhabi.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Franchising like opening a McDonald's.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Basically, yes, in the Abu Dhabi deal, the local partner
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: would put up all the actual money to build it.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Dolan just provides the brand name and the software tech,
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: so it shifts the risk. It dramatically lowers his financial risk.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: But it's also a quiet admission that the original grand model,
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: the whole I build it, I own it, I profit
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: idea simply does not work.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you the really dark question now
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the Vegas Vault prediction from our sources, Yeah, what happens
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: if this thing never actually turns a profit? What does
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the Las Vegas fear become in ten years?
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: That is the exact question haunting Wall Street right now.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: If the operational losses continue and the massive debt becomes unmanageable,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: it eventually becomes a distressed asset.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: But who buys a distressed giant glowing ball?
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Maybe a tech billionaire wants a massive vanity trophy. Hey, look,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I own this sphere like buying a sports team exactly.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: But the much darker timeline is that it literally becomes
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: a museum of failed ambition, a museum. Imagine it. The
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: interior screens are turned off because the electric bill is
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: just too high to run them, or or maybe they
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: just run cheap ads for Coca Cola twenty four to seven.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: You pay twenty bucks to walk in, look at the
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: weird architecture, maybe buy a T shirt in the lobby,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: and leave.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: No more live concerts, just a hollow, giant shell.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: The world's most expensive physical billboard.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: It is a very distinct possibility. Management is relying incredibly
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: heavily on the Eagles residency to carry them through twenty
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: twenty six because they simply don't have anyone else lined up.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: After that.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: The bench is empty.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: If that Heritage Act pipeline dries up, the lights might
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: literally go out.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: This has been such a fascinating look at the massive
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: gap between what is cool and what is profitable. I
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: think we often assume that just because something is highly
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: advanced and inherently means it's better.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: We really do. We culturally worship technology. But the sphere
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: is a massive flashing reminder that sometimes the boring traditional
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: solution is actually the best one. A boring rectangular box,
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: a boring rectangular concrete box costs maybe five hundred million
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: dollars to build. It easily hosts hockey, basketball, Disney on Ice,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Monster Trucks, and Taylor Swift all in the same week.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: It is a Swiss army knife.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: It is entirely flexible, and the.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Sphere is a diamond encrusted.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Scalpel that you can only use once a week for
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: very specific surgeries. In business, flexibility almost always beats complexity.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: The Sphere is the ultimate test of immersive entertainment, and
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: so far the financial results clearly say it's too expensive,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: it's too fragile, and it's just too hard to run.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: I want to leave all of our listeners with a
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: final thought to chew on. The Next time you are
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: scrolling and you see that massive glowing orb on Instagram
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: looking absolutely magnificent, ask yourself a simple question.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Ask yourself. Is that massive screen turned on because it
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: is actually making money or is it turned on just
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: to prove to the investors that it still works.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Is it a viable business or is it a two
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: point three billion dollar night light?
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: That is the multi billion dollar question.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: That's it for this deep dive. Thanks for listening and
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: we'll see you next time.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Thanks everyone,