Metallica has announced an eight-show Las Vegas residency at Sphere, dubbed “Life Burns Faster,” making the legendary heavy metal band the first metal act to perform at the high-tech venue since it opened in 2023.
The residency is scheduled for Oct. 1, 3, 15, 17, 22, 24, 29 and 31, 2026, with shows falling on Thursdays and Saturdays throughout the month. The performances will feature a mix of live staples and surprises from the band’s catalog, all enhanced by Sphere’s immersive audiovisual technologies.
Metallica co-founder and drummer Lars Ulrich said the idea had been percolating since Sphere’s very first night. “About 12 seconds into the opening night of Sphere with U2 back in ’23, I thought ’We have to do this, it’s completely uncharted territory,’” Mr. Ulrich said in a statement. “This residency gives us another chance to reinvent how we interact with our fans in a live setting. We are beyond excited to share this with the world in six months time, and way fuckin’ psyched to go next level!”
The residency will continue the band’s No Repeat Weekend format, which Metallica first introduced during the 2023 launch of their M72 World Tour. Under the format, no songs will be repeated between each Thursday and Saturday pairing, meaning fans who attend both nights of a given weekend will hear entirely different setlists.
It won’t be the band’s first foray into cutting-edge live experiences. Metallica previously debuted an immersive concert through Apple Vision Pro, with bassist Robert Trujillo describing the intimacy of that format to the Hollywood Reporter: “You can really feel the live music, and you can feel the interaction between the fans and the band. You can look in the fans’ eyes, it’s like you can almost touch it.”
Metallica joins a packed Sphere lineup for 2026 that also includes No Doubt, Eagles, Kenny Chesney, Backstreet Boys, Illenium, Phish and Carin Leon. The venue’s Wizard of Oz experience has also proven a major draw, surpassing $260 million in ticket sales as of January.
Tickets and Info
Two-night No Repeat Weekend packages and single-night tickets go on sale March 6 at 10 a.m. PST. Ticket registration, pre-sale information, enhanced experiences and travel packages are available at metallica.lnk.to/MetallicaSphere.
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