We recently visited Cosm Los Angeles in Inglewood, California, for an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the technology powering one of the most immersive live sports and entertainment experiences available today. If you have never been, the highlight of Cosm is a 27-meter LED dome that transports fans directly into the action. Cosm does not simply take a camera feed from a major network and display it in a larger format. Instead, Cosm sends its own high-resolution cameras and equipment to venues and then syncs those feeds to give you an immersive experience. Our team explored the venue from multiple angles to document how real-time rendering, distributed computing, and high-resolution video workflows come together to create what Cosm calls shared reality.
As a quick disclosure, Cosm let us watch a game the night before we filmed and gave us a food-and-beverage credit. Joe and George had been to Cosm, but I had never experienced it. Dell powers the experience, and they made the introduction. As with all of our tour content, this is better viewed in video format, but we wanted to have an article for our readers as well.
Cosm Tour Overview
Cosm represents a new category of entertainment venue that blends immersive technology with live event fandom. The Los Angeles location opened last year alongside a sister venue in Dallas. Company leadership aims to bring over 100 Cosm venues worldwide, giving fans everywhere access to this style of experiential viewing. As a quick aside, I think this is located where the old Hollywood Park racetrack was in Inglewood (near SoFi Stadium), and so I best remember the map location for a cheap place for beer and hot dogs when I was in college. It is certainly a lot nicer than those days.
Visitors entering Cosm encounter a space designed around a massive LED dome that serves as the centerpiece of the experience. Cosm hosts live sporting events, including hockey, UFC fights, soccer matches, and basketball games, alongside movie screenings and special entertainment programming. A single day can feature multiple completely different events thanks to a flexible backend infrastructure that reconfigures content on demand.
In the video, we toured the facility with Devin Poolman, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Cosm. Devin explained how the venue uses immersive technologies typically associated with virtual reality to bring them into a physical, shared space where fans can gather and experience events together. This approach aims to deliver the feeling of being present at live events without requiring travel to stadiums or arenas. Devin told me that the company’s technology and IP actually comes from working on planetariums that many of us went to as kids. This feels like a big evolution of that framework.
The Cosm Dome Experience
A 27-meter LED dome dominates the venue floor. Content fills the entire curved surface, creating a field of view that extends well beyond what traditional flat screens can achieve. It is going to be difficult to see in photographs, but it does not feel like you are in front of a movie or IMAX screen. It is very different. Sports content benefits particularly from this format, as viewers can see tactics and strategies unfold across a wider visual canvas than broadcast television typically offers.
Hockey presentations demonstrate the visual impact particularly well. The speed and motion of players translate effectively to the curved display surface.
Cosm also sets up cameras at UFC events, placing viewers ringside with camera angles that press against the octagon fencing. Soccer coverage using Premier League footage creates a sense of place by putting fans inside stadiums where crowd reactions become part of the experience. When we were done filming, fans decked out in team apparel were starting to arrive for a match that was being shown.
Basketball coverage offers another perspective advantage. Viewers can spot celebrities sitting courtside or examine details like what shoes players are wearing during gameplay. The expanded field of view lets fans choose where to direct their attention rather than being locked into whatever camera angle a broadcast director selects. That angle changes over time. So if you are at a football game, for example, and you have tickets in one endzone, then when the action is at the other end, it is hard to see. At Cosm, the director can just move you to another one of the camera angles. I love live sporting venues, but in terms of watching a game, this was better than having a ticket because your seat moves with the action.
One demonstration featured the Sistine Chapel rendered as a real-time 3D environment, allowing visitors to fly closer to examine fresco details that would be impossible to see from ground level in the actual Vatican.
Movie screenings go beyond simply playing films on a large screen. Cosm adds special effects and graphics that immerse viewers in the film’s world.
