Category: Las Vegas

Wizard of Oz at The Sphere is Las Vegas

Wizard of Oz at The Sphere in Las Vegas is an interesting attraction. It would fit right at home with classic Disneyland/World, though on a scale you could never do inside a theme park. It was very much like one of the Disney 4-D theater attractions, except instead of a 3-D movie, you see a huge surrounding dome image and “real” theater effects. There is wind, blowing “leaves” (paper), falling (foam) apples, flying monkeys (yep, a really cool drone thing) as well as some huge butterflies that fly around during one of the sequences. Add to that fog and fire and lighting effects and you have something far beyond just seeing an old movie upscaled and “special edition-ed” to fit a dome screen.

And, the seats also vibrate.

One real clever thing they do is project this on the dome as you are entering the theater:

The Sphere – Las Vegas

I wish I had not already know about this. The transition from what appears to be a stage with a curtain and speakers hanging around to this…

The Sphere – Las Vegas

…us truly a “wow” moment.

When I get some time, I will write up some thoughts about it from a theme park perspective. It was quite the unique experience.

More to come…

Universal Horror Unleashed and selfie sticks. And cameras.

Before visiting a new theme park or such, I like to verify what they do or do not allow to be brought in. While Universal Orlando allows selfie sticks, Universal Horror Unleashed Las Vegas does not. This makes me wonder if Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights even allows them. I’ve had mine with me the times I have gone, but we were already in the park. The park may allow them in, but perhaps they stop allowing once they are letting in HHN guests. Does anyone here know?

I reached out to UHU Vegas to clarify something about camera equipment after seeing someone sharing their point and shoot was not allowed in. While no photography is allowed inside the haunted houses at Universal, I saw plenty of cameras and YouTubers there with their cameras.

Guess we have to go sometime and find out.

Omega Mart. You have no idea.

Deep inside Area 15 (yes, 15) in Las Vegas is Omega Mart. To the casual observe, it looks like any old grocery store… but looks can be very deceiving.

This commercial from two years ago is one of the more up-front videos about the attraction, but when videos started appearing online in 2021, they were far more cryptic.

For instance, take a look at this old Omega Mart TV ad…

“Local coast to coast” and “your family won’t be the same” seemed … odd.

Even the more modern commercials also show that something is not quite right here.

Nebula loaf?

There were also bizarre product ads, like this one for Shrubs, the avocado-flavored French fry treats.

There are even videos about Plenty Valley and how it came to be at Omega Mart.

I fell down this Omega Mart rabbit hole quite deeply. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of Omega Mart videos. Some are presented as TV ads for the grocery store itself, promoting special deals. Others are for what I assume are “store brand” products. And others are like weird informercials…

The videos were scattered around the internet on YouTube, social media, websites and more, so I expect there are plenty I have yet to see. Fortunately, some folks have collected them and put together compilations of all the videos they have found.

And the rabbit hole went even deeper: There are internal employee training videos! Here are all the sections presented as one long video.

So just what IS Omega Mart?

Beats me! And we spent over five hours exploring it.

Here is my VR walkthrough of a tiny bit of it. In the future, I’ll share some thoughts and explanations.

Until then…

Area 15 does not exist.

Area 15 in Las Vegas (not to be confused with Area 51) is an entertainment complex that houses various food, drink, and entertainment offerings. You can ride an indoor zip-line, throw axes, play retro video games, experience Virtual Reality and spend hours exploring Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart.

Here is a VR walk around some of the art displays outside the building:

And here is a VR walk around the inside of the Area 15 building:

Admission to the building itself is free, so you can just go there and look around. Individual attractions and experiences all charge their own fees.

You can buy combo passes to save some money, as well, though I did not check to see how much of a saving this actually is.

Meow Wolf Omega Mart in Las Vegas

First, a quick update to my Miscellaneous (“Other Places”) photo gallery… I found some Las Vegas, Nevada photos I took in 2000 during a work trip. These were taken with my 1996-era Epson PhotoPC digital camera, so the “high resolution” was only 640×480. You can take a glimpse of Vegas through the eyes of a first-generation digital camera here:

http://misc.disneyfans.com/OtherPlaces/Nevada/index.html

Next, Omega Mart has been added to the gallery! After running in to some very weird “commercials” on YouTube for this “grocery store” a few years ago, I went down quite a rabbit hole watching their in-universe videos. Omega Mart is an interactive experience where you can walk through and just look at bizarre artistic creations, OR go down the rabbit hole yourself and explore the underlying story. For this one, Omega Mart is a grocery store operated by a corporation called Dramcorp. Dramcorp is up to some questionable business practices, involving alien worlds, extracting “the source” from humans, and stuff that it would take a book to fully explain. If even possible.

I really wanted to get to Omega Mart, but ended up in Denver earlier this year, and thus my first Meow Wolf experience was their Convergence Station (see photos in the gallery).

But now, Omega Mart has been visited:

http://misc.disneyfans.com/OtherPlaces/Nevada/LasVegas2024/Area15/index.html

It is located inside a facility called Area 15 (15, not 51) which was quite the site on its own—attractions, food, drinks, VR, arcade, shopping and, of course, Omega Mart.

VR photos posted to Park Hopping in VR on Facebook, and VR videos will be on my Park Hopping in VR YouTube channel (currently unlisted, but I will make them available soon—or ask, and I’ll send you the link sooner).

More to come…