“Sphere-Like” Experience Being Promised For New Event Center
Later this year, event hosts will be able to transport their guests to limitless destinations as they dance, dine and celebrate special occasions inside a new North Loop event center, Royalston Square.
Using high-tech immersive technology, the walls of the center will be transformed into, say, a forest, an art gallery, a futuristic city–whatever the host wants.
“You can be in Rome having dinner. You can be on the streets of New York, you can be under the water,” said Steve Hark, CEO of Entourage Events Group to KSTP-TV. ”Any video you have on your phone or can be given to us by a client we can project it and have them live in that space, live in that moment, when they’re hosting an event.”
He’s likening it to the immersive experience being enjoyed by big audiences inside The Sphere in Las Vegas. “Vegas has The Sphere, Minneapolis will have The Square,” reads the banner outside the future Royalston Square, whose logo resembles that of Rolls Royce.
The site is currently a vacant 1960s-era warehouse near the Farmers Market at 501 Royalston Avenue.
Hark told KSTP that unlike The Sphere, there are no plans for projected images on the outside of the building, but part of the fun of Royalston Square will be entering a nondescript building and suddenly entering an elaborate virtual world.
“We are thrilled to bring this innovative concept to Minneapolis, offering residents, business and nonprofit organizations, and visitors a chance to experience the future of special events today,” Hark said in the company’s announcement.
He hopes to have Royalston Square open by this fall.
By Mike Binkley, North Loop volunteer