The first Galactic and extragalactic results from the VISTA Hemisphere Survey (VHS) are presented. The aim of the VHS is to carry out a near-infrared survey which, when combined with other VISTA public surveys, will result in coverage of the whole southern celestial hemisphere (~20000deg^2^) to a depth 30 times fainter than the Two Micron All Sky Survey in at least two wavebands (J and Ks). The VHS vision includes a deep optical survey over the same area and this is now being realised with the VST surveys and the Dark Energy Survey, which has recently started. A summary of the survey progress is presented, with some follow-up results on low-mass stars and high-redshift quasars.