Grandscape at The Colony becomes a revolutionary immersive entertainment venue

Cosm, a global technology company providing immersive experiences for sports, entertainment, science and education, brings its new immersive entertainment venue to Grandscape at The Colony. Whether it’s a sporting event, concert or nature presentation, guests will experience immersive content thanks to Cosm’s exclusive dome and curved LED screen display technology, which aims to bridge the gap between virtual and physical realities.

The Colony site is designed by Dallas-based HKS. The three-level facility will be between 65,000 and 75,000 square feet in size, have a capacity of approximately 1,500 guests, and feature an 87-foot-diameter LED screen.

“We always knew Dallas-Fort Worth was going to be home to our first or second location,” said Cosm CEO Jeb Terry, former NFL player for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. CEO. “We looked at Victory Park, we looked at the fairgrounds, but when we started exploring Grandscape, I was really drawn to the developers in the area. In The Colony, we’ll be surrounded by a lot of attention to details, high-quality tenants and a rapidly growing population all contribute to making our experience dynamic in every way.

Cosm is also developing a new facility in Los Angeles. Terry was unwilling to share specific funding numbers, but says the company is well capitalized thanks to its merger and acquisition activity. Cosm’s largest investor is Steve Winn’s Mirasol Capital. Winn is the former Chairman, President and CEO of Dallas-based RealPage.

The first level of Cosm in The Colony will be a standing room area with minimal dynamic seating for certain productions — imagine a concert pit or the SRO area at AT&T Stadium, Terry said. The second level will be a tiered bowl with lounge type chairs. The third level will be more of a socializing bar and will feature an open-air terrace.

But every level will be high level, Terry said. “Think about the coolest club section of every stadium or arena you’ve been to – that’s really the intention,” he said. “We aspire to be the best immersive producer in the world.”

After a year-long design process, Cosm recently inaugurated its Los Angeles location; also designed by HKS, it is slated to open in May 2024. The Colony location is already being designed and expects a more compressed schedule than the LA site.

“It takes us about a year to go through the full design process, price things out, and then start construction,” said Mark Williams, HKS’s manager for stadiums and sports venues. “Our schedule is entirely dependent on the economy and the supply chain, but I expect it to be a bit tighter.”

The settlement location will be similar to Los Angeles, but HKS and Cosm plan to make it distinctively Dallas.

Cosm was built on the backbone of the experience a planetarium provides – and the company deploys its technology in 700 planetariums around the world. “The planetarium was the world’s first experiential theater and immersive experience,” said Terry. “The goal is to take you into space, as well as educate, inspire and entertain. And that’s really what we do, but applying it to sports, entertainment and other things.

The company’s flagship location is at the Cosm Experience Center in Salt Lake City. The location is a mini version of what happens in Los Angeles and North Texas. In 2022, Cosm, which has more than 200 employees, partnered with NBC to broadcast the Winter Olympics in the world’s first immersive 8K virtual reality live stream.

“All of a sudden the world today is equating the physical environment with the virtual environment,” Williams said. “In a Cosm, you can literally be taken anywhere in the world and have a front row seat. But you won’t just look at it, you’ll feel like you’re there.

Cosm has grown through a series of acquisitions. The deal that anchored the company, Terry says, was its purchase of Evans & Sutherland, which was founded in 1968 and pioneered planetarium and immersive computer graphics. Cosm also acquired LiveLike VR in 2020.

Looking ahead, Terry says his team is currently identifying the next eight markets for Cosm. “Our aspiration is scale,” he said. “Over the next five to ten years, we expect to have many more.” As scaling efforts intensify, Terry studies the early successes of Dallas-based Topgolf. “We really try to model our efforts on them,” he said. “And finally, I think Dallas-Fort Worth can house more than one Cosm.”

Author

Ben Swanger is the associate editor of CEOthe business title of Magazine D. Ben manages the dallas 500…