When the Sphere in Las Vegas opens its doors for The Wizard of Oz next month, visitors to the venue will find themselves in the middle of a twister. And not just because the 160,000 square foot LED screen will wrap around them.

Executives at the Sphere say that its version of the classic 1939 film, which opens Aug. 28, will incorporate immersive, real-world, physical elements at a scale that I dont think anyone else has done before, according to Glenn Derry, executive vp of MSG Ventures, the executive tasked with developing next-generation live experiences for Sphere. That means when that tornado hits Kansas, the 18,000-plus people inside the Sphere will have wind whipping at their face, leaves flying in front of them, bolts of lightning puncturing the fog and swirling haze that the company will create inside the venue itself.

One of the big sequences in the film is when were transported to Oz from the Gale family farm, right out of the gate at the at the opening of the film, as you transition into color, into Oz, Derry says. And we wanted that to be really impactful, something that was truly enormous and huge, and something that they couldnt have done back when they originally released the film, but that we were able to kind of reimagine what that looked like and felt like, and what it actually feels like to be there.

I wanted it to feel massive, because its a massive space. We have 13 million cubic feet of air in the Sphere, he adds. How do you do that in a way that doesnt distract from the film, but actually adds to the immersion and makes it feel like youre in there? I think weve hit that mark. Its really fun.

Derry says that his team created a custom rig that layers in fog, haze, and leaves, before turning on 12 foot tall 750 horsepower fans, created from electric vehicle motors.

We do that piece by piece by piece, kind of like an orchestra, Derry says. We create a really great giant sort of plume that fills the whole venue with this kind of lovely cloud, basically, so its like youre going into a dream sequence.

The tornado, of course, is just the beginning. Once Dorothy gets to Oz, she has to deal with the Wizard, and the Wicked Witch of the West.

In the film, towering flames and smoke introduce the Wizard, whose ghostly projection declares I am Oz, the great and powerful!

Derry says that those flames will be present in room as visitors to the Sphere are introduced to the character:

You want to see the flames, so lets bring that in, lets feel some of that heat, Derry says. Lets see what that was like for them to stand there and face Oz.

And later in the film, when the witch dispatches the flying monkeys, Derrys team found a way to create actual winged creatures that will fly over the audiences head.

Weve had to develop systems to be able to enable them to invade the space and could come at you from above and beyond, he says. Its been a lot of fun to try to figure out, again, how to do that in a venue of this size and scope and scale in a way thats compelling.

The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere is in many ways a culminating event for the venue, which until now has focused on residencies from popular bands and musicians, as well as the documentary film Postcard From Earth, which uses every square inch of the venues screen. Oz, however, is the first real project from the venue to take the learnings from what it has done before and expand into 3D space, combining a reimagined high-definition, AI-enhanced version of the film, a re-recorded score, and those physical elements, making it a top priority for chairman James Dolan, who originally conceived of the Sphere.

There were some things that our chairman was just dead set on. The tornado was one of them. Our Winged Monkeys was another one. These were things that were kind of part of his vision for what this experience would be out of the gate, Derry says. We have other moments where were peppering in other flying creatures and different kinds of fun moments, like apples appearing from nowhere when theyre thrown at Scarecrow and Dorothy, right before they rescue the tin man.

Sphere, along with its partners at Warner Bros. Discovery, Google (which contributed its artificial intelligence expertise) and Magnopus, are betting that those moments will leave audiences with dropped jaws, creating an experience that cant be replicated anywhere else on Earth, transporting visitors from the Las Vegas desert to the Emerald City.

The Wizard of Oz at The Sphere Sphere Entertainment