Phish Takes Sphere to Another Level With Nine Nights of Real-Time Immersive Innovation
TAGS: Phish, Moment Factory, Sphere Studios, Jason Colton, Chris Kuroda, Myreze,
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Nine nights. One massive screen. Zero pre-programmed limitations. Phish has returned to Sphere, and this residency redefines what a live production can actually do. Working alongside Moment Factory and Sphere Studios, the band has built a show that responds, shifts, and breathes in real time, matched beat for beat to their improvisational sets.
The visuals run on Sphere’s 16K resolution media plane, and Moment Factory developed distinct visual concepts that pull from an almost absurdly wide creative range: iridescent spiderwebs, bubblegum worlds, a hot-dog spaceship odyssey. Each one adapts live to wherever the band takes the music. It’s a production that can’t be fully predicted before showtime, which is exactly the point.
To ground the whole thing in Phish’s actual history, Sphere Studios deployed their Big Sky camera system at The Barn, the band’s own studio in Burlington, Vermont. Four nights of capture last September brought the interior and exterior of that space into high resolution, giving concertgoers a direct line into where Phish creates. That context inside the dome adds real weight to the experience.
The virtual light rig is where things get genuinely remarkable. For over 40 years, lighting designer Chris Kuroda’s work has been inseparable from the Phish live experience. Here, Moment Factory, Sphere Studios, and creative agency Myreze rebuilt that entire system digitally, giving Kuroda command of more than 7,000 virtual DMX lights with the same improvisational fluidity he brings to his physical rig. Nothing about that is a workaround. It’s a full creative tool, purpose-built for how Phish actually performs.
Phish co-manager Jason Colton put the partnership plainly: “They’ve always approached things with a real sense of restless imagination while breaking new ground.” Ten projects in with Moment Factory, and the results speak directly to that. This residency isn’t a spectacle layered onto a concert. It’s a live production where the technology and the band are genuinely working together, in real time, every single night.