How Tomorrowland’s Visual Mastermind Built “Truly Unforgettable” Vegas Sphere Show, UNITY

After a decade of dazzling festivals that could that make the Bellagio fountains look like a garden hose, Tomorrowland’s partnership with visual mastermind Joris Corthout has found its most ambitious playground yet: the Las Vegas Sphere.

Corthout is the Co-Founder and CEO of Prismax, the world-renowned Belgian production studio known for creative storytelling through bleeding-edge tech. As the exclusive content and live video operator for Tomorrowland since 2014, he’s been pulling the strings behind the iconic festival brand’s visual magic since 2014.

Now he’s tackling the Sphere, Vegas’ record-breaking $2.3 billion orb and host venue of UNITY, an ambitious concert series produced alongside Insomniac Events. The collaboration represents a daring fusion of the biggest EDM powerhouses in Europe and the United States, respectively, who have collectively promised a “multi-sensory dance music experience” that could change the fabric of Sin City raving.

Each evening begins with a theatrical “guided adventure” through Tomorrowland’s fantasy realms of Planaxis, Adscendo and Orbyz as well as Insomniac’s beloved festival universes, including the storied Electric Daisy Carnival. For each night’s finale, fans will take in a headlining performance from superstar DJs including Kaskade, Subtronics, DJ Snake, Alan Walker and EDM.com Class of 2024 artist Sara Landry.

That’s when Corthout will deploy his secret weapon, the xLive system, Tomorrowland’s real-time visual engine that can remodel with the precision of a chameleon at the end of a rainbow. He tells EDM.com that the tech “can adapt the world on the spot,” a mind-blowing thought considering its latticework with the Sphere’s dizzying production capabilities.

We caught up with Corthout to discuss how he’s building the UNITY experience and what attendees can expect at the Sphere. The series kicked off last night and its opening weekend will run through August 31st before returning September 19-20, September 26-27 and October 17-18. Tickets are available here.

EDM.com: You’ve been Tomorrowland’s exclusive visual operator for over a decade and pioneered their virtual festival experiences. At the Sphere, you’re working with a canvas that’s physically immutable, meaning you can’t really iterate or add elements mid-show like you could at Tomorrowland. How does this constraint force you to rethink the relationship between visual storytelling and musical progression?

Joris Corthout: For the first part of UNITY, we take the audience on a journey through three of Tomorrowland’s most iconic worlds: Orbyz, Planaxis, and Adscendo. These themes are deeply developed stories, crafted by Tomorrowland over years, and at the Sphere they’re presented in their most spectacular form on its immense screen.

The music for these sections is fixed, which allows us to fine-tune every visual beat to deliver the most immersive experience possible. For the finale, where each night features a different DJ, we gain back flexibility through our in-house xLive system, the same real-time visual engine we’ve used for Tomorrowland’s major stages in recent years. With xLive, we can adapt the world on the spot, changing effects, lighting colors, camera movements, and more to match each artist’s style.

So even within the Sphere’s fixed canvas, we’ve found a way to blend precise storytelling with live, reactive creativity.

EDM.com: How is Prismax translating Tomorrowland’s festival storytelling into a contained, multi-hour experience at Sphere? What challenges arise when adapting festival-scale world-building to a venue-specific format?

Joris Corthout: Our biggest challenge was reimagining Tomorrowland’s worlds for the Sphere’s unprecedented scale and resolution. That meant rebuilding the environments of Orbyz, Planaxis, and Adscendo entirely from scratch to meet the venue’s technical demands.

The Tomorrowland and Prismax teams worked side by side to ensure every detail, which looked stunning on the Sphere’s vast canvas, from the sweeping landscapes to the smallest visual accents. We also applied the same meticulous approach to the finale, where the DJ takes over. It was an intense creative push, but seeing these worlds come alive in such clarity and scale has been incredibly rewarding.

EDM.com: Dance music fans are increasingly sophisticated, expecting both spectacle and authenticity. How are you using the Sphere’s technology to push boundaries while ensuring UNITY doesn’t feel like a gimmick?

Joris Corthout: With UNITY, we’re immersing the audience in four richly detailed worlds, each paired with some of the most iconic tracks ever played at Tomorrowland. These environments are crafted with such depth and intricacy that you could watch the show multiple times and still discover new details.

The Sphere allows us to deliver that Tomorrowland-level quality on a visual scale unlike anything our fans have experienced before. It’s pure spectacle, but rooted in authentic storytelling and musicality, so it never feels like a gimmick.

EDM.com: Tomorrowland’s global fanbase expects a universally resonant experience, yet UNITY is rooted in Las Vegas’ unique cultural context. How is Prismax balancing the creation of a show that appeals to Tomorrowland’s international “People of Tomorrow“”“ while leveraging the Sphere’s technology to create something distinctly Vegas?

Joris Corthout: Tomorrowland’s magic is universal. It resonates with audiences everywhere, so we don’t feel the need to specifically adapt it for Las Vegas. We’ve brought the Tomorrowland experience from Belgium to the French Alps, from Brazil to China, and it’s been embraced by every crowd.

UNITY follows that same philosophy: a show designed to inspire and connect people from all over the world, now amplified by the Sphere’s technology to create something truly unforgettable in Las Vegas.

EDM.com: What compromises or creative tensions have arisen in aligning these two brands? And how did you navigate them?

Joris Corthout: For us, it was a natural fit. Insomniac has its own signature concepts, Tomorrowland has its own, and UNITY was designed to journey through both. The audience will clearly feel when they’re immersed in a Tomorrowland world and when they’ve entered an Insomniac world.

Then, in the finale, those two universes merge seamlessly into a shared space where the DJs perform. It’s a celebration of both identities, without either losing its essence.

EDM.com: UNITY is billed as the first chapter in a series of Insomniac-Tomorrowland collaborations. Based on your experience with this project, how do you see the role of immersive venues like Sphere shaping the future of live music production, particularly for electronic music?

Joris Corthout: Festivals today are expanding beyond the main event—into restaurants, exhibitions, stores, and immersive experiences—as new ways to connect with their audiences. Bringing two of the world’s leading electronic music festivals together inside a venue like the Sphere is a dream scenario for any EDM fan.

UNITY offers a visual journey through beloved music, elevated by an immersive experience at the highest possible level of today’s technology. Venues like the Sphere show that EDM isn’t just built for the dancefloor. It’s here to thrive in new, groundbreaking formats.

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