Technology is enabling fans to immerse themselves in the music of legendary artists like Janet Jackson.
The “Anytime, Anyplace” songstress is currently headlining a residency at Resorts World Theatre in Las Vegas, NV, running through May 31, 2025. Fans can relive 42 of her timeless hits, including “I Get Lonely” and “When I Think of You.” The latter, released in 1986 as the third single from her “Control” album, became her first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, as Billboard notes.
Jackson’s Vegas residency carries deep significance. Her career began when she was seven years old at MGM Las Vegas. She performed alongside sisters Rebbie and La Toya, as noted in Las Vegas Magazine.
“I will always have a very, very special place in my heart for Las Vegas. I started my career here 51 years ago. I love you so much,” Jackson said during her performance on Wednesday, Feb. 12.
Photo Credit: Resorts World Theatre
L-Acoustics
With a career spanning five decades, Jackson’s passion for performing remains unwavering. Her Las Vegas residency is enhanced by the industry’s best, with French audio manufacturer L-Acoustics, renowned for revolutionizing live sound, ensuring an unforgettable experience. For fans who attended Jackson’s 2019 residency at Las Vegas’ Park Theatre, which brought in a reported $13 million, you’ve already witnessed its magic firsthand.
Founded in 1984 by physicist Christian Heil, L-Acoustics developed practical solutions that would transform the audio industry. The company first introduced loudspeakers before expanding into electronics, software, and other solutions to enhance the connection between artists and fans.
L-Acoustics’ major breakthrough came in the 1990s with the introduction of the line array—a vertical row of speakers designed for superior sound reinforcement. This device forever changed the live music experience.
“This revolutionized the way concert sound happened. Until the line array was invented, essentially what we were doing was stacking speakers on the side of the stage,” Laurent Vaissié, CEO at L-Acoustics, explained. “That was the world of sound. When you do that, it is just a lot of chaos. In the eighties or early nineties, it was very loud, and you couldn’t hear anything in the back. Once the line array happened, this completely changed the way people experienced live sound at concerts because from that moment, the sound was controlled from the front to the back, and everybody could hear intelligibly what was being said.”
Jackson’s residency at the venue, which seats between 4,700 and 5,000 attendees, features seven line arrays stacked directly above the main stage. The show is further enhanced by L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound, a spatial technology introduced in 2016 that allows artists and engineers to create sounds in three dimensions.
“What we’re trying to do here is not so much 360 surround with all the content all the time. What we want to do is something we actually call hyperreal, which is to enhance the reality of the show—make sure there’s a strong connection between the artist and the audience…The point is that we have this canvas that allows the engineer and the artist to paint sound in three dimensions, and what they do with that is completely a creative choice,” Vaissié said during a tech tour ahead of Jackson’s performance.
Caram Costanzo served as the front-of-house engineer for Jackson’s residency, localizing vocals and instruments during the Feb. 12 show. Reactive decisions by the engineer to adapt to moments within the show are made possible through the use of an FX Engine, which offers fully customizable controls and interacts with objects within L-ISA, according to a news release.
“Caram has chosen to use L-ISA, the soundscape here, and go, ‘The guitar player’s over there. The drummer’s over here. The keyboard player’s over here.’ We can use all of this real estate to actually hear the different things,'” explained L-Acoustics Director of Product Management Scott Sugden. “Whether you’re seated right in the middle, on the right, or on the left, all of us perceive that. And now that creates an intimacy for the audience, which means we’re paying more attention. And as an artist on stage, you notice the audience is actually captivated by your show.”
While L-Acoustics has worked with Jackson previously, this was the first time she worked hand-in-hand with L-ISA. Furthermore, L-ISA was designed specifically for Resorts World Theatre and installed there in 2021. The venue has 242 speakers, delivering an impressive 900,000 watts of power.
“This show just hits everywhere, and it doesn’t have to be louder in one spot and quieter in another. It just has this nice, consistent tightness to it. And we’re solving that problem as well with this technology. It’s a pretty neat thing,” Sugden explained.
Other notable artists who have benefitted from the technology include Kendrick Lamar (Super Bowl LIX), Adele, and Katy Perry, who performed at Resorts World Theatre from December 2021 to November 2023.
“The reason why an artist chooses Resorts World, that’s been the case for Katy Perry, and that’s been the case for other venues in Las Vegas, is the ability to do production on a higher level,” Vaissié detailed. “Especially for a residency, an artist is repeating the same show over a period of time, they really want to get that production level high because you have to give the audience something that they’re not gonna see on tour. To bring them to Vegas to see the show, it has to be something special.”
