We’re Off to Smell ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at the Las Vegas Sphere

Posted on: June 26, 2025, 12:15h. 

Last updated on: June 26, 2025, 12:42h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Vegas Myths Busted.
  • The Sphere will fill with scents corresponding to key scenes in its reimagined version of “The Wizard of Oz,” which opens August 28
  • A Sphere executive has confirmed that these scenes will include the tornado that propels Dorothy into Oz and the poppy field she and her new friends encountered on their way to the Emerald City

When Dorothy follows the yellow brick road into the Las Vegas Sphere, it won’t only be your eyes and ears targeted by the reimagination of 1939’s classic “The Wizard of Oz.” The 18,600-seat theater will also fill with scents designed to pull the audience into key scenes in the movie.

AI renders a photo of what “The Wizard of Oz” will smell like at the Las Vegas Sphere. (Image: GROK)

These scents aren’t among the technological breakthroughs currently being highlighted by the Sphere — such as the AI that helped fit to 4:3 original film to the Sphere’s 160K square-foot wraparound digital screen, or the haptic technology that will help the audience feel the digitally enhanced soundtrack in their actual seats.

Even so, the scents are likely to be among the most memorable takeaways from the film, which begins screening to the public on August 28. That’s because the brain’s processing center for smells is the most directly connected sense to the hippocampus (the brain region responsible for memory formation) as well as to the amygdala (which processes emotions).

The scene from the Sphere-ified “Wizard of Oz” is displayed on the venue’s Exosphere. Note the giant legs of the Wicked Witch jutting out from the bottom, which are a real photo op currently offered for free at the rear of the venue. (Image: Sphere Entertainment)

This is why certain scents immediately trigger childhood emotions.

Poppy Culture

According to techeblog.com, the smell of poppies will help drag audiences into the scene in which Dorothy and her new friends enter a field of thousands of bright red poppies.

In the film, the field is placed there by the Wicked Witch of the West to prevent the posse from reaching the Emerald City. In the film’s lone adults-only reference, the field emits a fragrance that — like the opium derived from poppy seed alkaloids — causes Dorothy, Toto, and the Cowardly Lion to fall into a deep sleep. (The Scarecrow and Tin Man remain unaffected due to their inanimate nature.)

Another smell-o-vision moment teased in interviews by Sphere Entertainment president Jennifer Koester will occur during the tornado. It is presumed to be the smell of airborne dirt, which will of course be accompanied by a hair-blowing wind.

Though never mentioned by Koester, another scene believed to include scents will be the colorful flower field marking the classic film’s transition from black and white into Technicolor.

The field conceals Munchkins who are initially frightened by Dorothy’s house, which has just been flung by the interdimensional tornado into Munchkinland, crushing the Wicked Witch of the East.

Tickets are available here for “The Wizard of Oz” at $104-$194 per seat, with the cheapest seats during daytime screenings.