What to Expect From Backstreet Boys’ Sphere Residency: Dancing, Iconic Visuals & ‘Not a Bad Seat in the House’

Halpin describes the BSB as “like that Pixar movie with all the emotions [Inside Out] — they together form this cohesive unit that brings all the elements together.” Preparing for a challenge as immense as Sphere’s first pop show, he explains, elucidated each member’s unique personality and skill set.

Kevin Richardson “asks really detailed, observant questions; he needs to understand the mechanics of how things work because he wants to know how that relates to what they have to do”; McLean “is all about the energy,” keen to get the crowd hyped; Brian Littrell is more “practical,” interested in how each element of the show affects the others and what unforeseen issues might need more thought. Nick Carter, who now lives in Vegas, is “easy-going” but also “like a machine — he gets up and he nails it the first time, every time.” And Howie Dorough is the deep thinker, “making sure you dot your I’s and cross your T’s” when considering different options of how to execute.  

“Probably the most unique situation is that we’re still doing a show like the Backstreet Boys — we’re still doing choreography and staging,” says McLean. “All the other groups that have been here are band-bands, so they’re standing there, they’re doing what they do and they’re freaking awesome, but it’s almost like the soundtrack to what you’re watching on the screen.” He says the audience can expect to see all five Boys onstage for about 95% of the show (though perhaps not always all at once).  

“We’re not to the point yet where either Rich + Tone or we say, ‘You know what? I think we’re just gonna sit on stools for this one,’” McLean says (though he allows that may happen for a couple of appropriate songs). “We’re going to keep doing what we do until we physically can’t anymore. We are showmen, we’re hams. We love to be onstage and we love to perform.” The show has no additional live dancers — just the guys onstage, with cameras trained on them individually or as a group. Onscreen, however, live-captured or motion-captured dancers will appear; Halpin calls out one piece in particular in which the entire screen is a lyrical duet between two mo-cap figures, “which is stunningly beautiful.” 

When asked about particular influences on the show’s visuals, Rich and Halpin both point to the Millennium era, with Rich in particular referencing the “futuristic vibe” of the “Larger Than Life” music video. But more generally, Tone says, fans can expect the show’s visual perspective to offer “a historical sort of layout of the Boys’ entire career,” blending “something new” with “something nostalgic and familiar.”  

Halpin says those familiar with BSB’s music videos will recognize “little homages” but assures the overall show feels “very, very fresh, very modern.” Adds Rich: “Working with these guys, we’re reminded they’re icons. Tone and I always love to bring that iconic energy to them and remind them that they are who they are.”

Die-hard fans who truly want an old-school BSB concert experience (read: feeling close enough to the guys to make aspirational eye contact) will be able to get it on the GA floor. But the team had the intimacy intrinsic to BSB shows top of mind more generally: the “No. 1” thing the group reiterated while planning stage design, says McLean, was that “we do love to engage with our fans.” A specially angled stage with lifts and thrusts allows for staggered entrances of different band members at different angles and brings them further into the audience. “There’s no real blind spots… in my opinion, there’s not a bad seat in the house,” McLean says.  

“There are two shows going on, just to be real about it,” says Rich, alluding to the ways in which the live action from the Boys and the pre-shot visuals are interwoven. Halpin calls the show “probably the most ambitious” that’s been done at Sphere yet, noting that it’s an entirely different experience from the floor all the way up to the 400 level seats: “If I was a ticket-buying fan, I would want to buy three tickets to see it from three different places.” From the start, he says, Rich + Tone described the show as “50% a movie experience, 50% a concert experience, and the blend of those two elements is key.”

McLean’s assessment is frank: “There’s no way you can watch us and everything that’s happening [onscreen] at the same time. Like, there are two shows going on at once, and the content that we have for this is insane.”