When the Sphere in Las Vegas opens its doors for The Wizard of Oz next month, visitors to the venue will find themselves in the middle of a twister. And not just because the 160,000 square foot LED screen will wrap around them.

Executives at the Sphere say that its version of the classic 1939 film, which opens Aug. 28, will incorporate immersive, real-world, physical elements "at a scale that I don't think anyone else has done before," according to Glenn Derry, executive vp of MSG Ventures, the executive responsible for the technology and physical effects in the venue.

That means when that tornado hits Kansas, the 10,000 people inside the Sphere will have wind whipping at their face, leaves flying in front of them, bolts of lightning puncturing the fog and swirling haze that the company will create inside the venue itself.

"One of the big sequences in the film is when we're transported to Oz from the Gale family farm, right out of the gate at the at the opening of the film, as you transition into color, into Oz," Derry says. "And we wanted that to be really impactful, something that was truly enormous and huge, and something that they couldn't have done back when they originally released the film, but that we were able to kind of reimagine what that looked like and felt like, and what it actually feels like to be there.

"I wanted it to feel massive, because it's a massive space. We have 13 million cubic feet of air in the Sphere," he adds. "How do you do that in a way that doesn't distract from the film, but actually adds to the immersion and makes it feel like you're in there? I think we've hit that mark. It's really fun."

Derry says that his team created a custom rig that layers in fog, haze, and leaves, before turning on 12 foot tall 750 horsepower fans, created from electric vehicle motors.

"We do that piece by piece by piece, kind of like an orchestra," Derry says. "We create a really great giant sort of plume that fills the whole venue with this kind of lovely cloud, basically, so it's like you're going into a dream sequence."

The tornado, of course, is just the beginning. Once Dorothy gets to Oz, she has to deal with the Wizard, and the Wicked Witch of the West.

In the film, towering flames and smoke introduce the Wizard, whose ghostly projection declares "I am Oz, the great and powerful!"

Derry says that those flames will be present in room as visitors to the Sphere are introduced to the character:

"You want to see the flames, so let's bring that in, let's feel some of that heat," Derry says. "Let's see what that was like for them to stand there and face Oz."

And later in the film, when the witch dispatches the flying monkeys, Derry's team found a way to create actual winged creatures that will fly over the audience's head.