Sphere Entertainment Co. jumped Monday after the live-entertainment company’s Las Vegas venue opened on Friday with a show from rock band U2.
The stock surged as much as 17% to $43.6, the largest intraday leap since 2020. Sphere’s shares have more than doubled in 2023.
Management has “achieved its goal of setting a new standard in the live category,” Macquarie analyst Paul Golding wrote in a note after attending the U2 show over the weekend.
The experience was “premium, totally immersive, blurring the lines between digital and physical planes in ways unknown to us to exist otherwise,” he said. Macquarie has a neutral rating on Sphere Entertainment and a 12-month price target of $32.
The opening of the $2.3 billion venue has drawn attention to the Las Vegas Strip at a time casinos and hotels are seeing consumers spend less as pandemic-era stimulus savings wane. The venue is the latest addition to CEO James Dolan’s portfolio of live-entertainment names. He also heads Madison Square Garden Sports and Madison Square Garden Entertainment.
“The experience at Sphere left us more optimistic for residency or live-event revenue to exceed our current expectations,” Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne wrote in a Monday note. He has an equal-weight rating and $24 price target on shares of Sphere.
Despite the buzz surrounding the Las Vegas venue, Wall Street is still largely on the sidelines on shares of Sphere Entertainment — only 2 analysts give the company buy-equivalent ratings, while six say to hold shares. The average price target of about $31 represents a more than 25% downside from where shares currently trade.
Read more: Dolan’s $2.3 Billion Sphere Looks Like Weirdest Draw in Vegas
In addition to U2’s 25-show run, the Sphere has a slate of high-profile events on the calendar for the rest of the year. An original immersive production directed by Darren Aronofsky opens to the public Oct. 6, and in mid-November, Formula 1 will take over the Sphere for multiple days for its inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix.
(Updates stock moves.)