For Clean Bandit’s Brits Week: Friends at the Palladium show in support of War Child, STUDIO/ created an ambitious, immersive performance inside the historic London Palladium. At the core of the visual design was a forced perspective train set that blended LED, projection and scenic textures to create a surreal and shifting performance space.
Guest artists, including Jess Glynne, LeoStayTrill, and Belén Aguilera, moved within a multi-platform environment that felt more theatrical than traditional concert staging. Each element of the stage responded to a visual narrative that evolved from serene train journeys into a glitch-driven digital chaos, echoing the unpredictability of both travel and technology.
To make sure everything came together and ran smoothly, STUDIO/ turned to Disguise for an agile, powerful solution that could handle real-time effects, rapid changes, and high-res content across varied surfaces, all within a tight deadline and a one-day load-in window.
Image credits: Rosie Wills
The Challenge
STUDIO/ faced an ambitious task: building a cohesive, layered world of LED, projection and scenic textures under a tight three-week turnaround and a same-day show load-in.
The visual narrative had to evolve in real-time, blending high-res landscapes, reactive effects and a visual “virus” that glitched through the set. All of this needed to be perfectly mapped onto an asymmetrical curved set that simulated a moving train and responded to live performance.
With 10 guest performers and only one day to rehearse in the venue, the team needed total flexibility and reliability. The system had to handle real-time Notch effects, blend camera feeds with pre-rendered animations, and remain agile enough for last-minute creative changes on the day.
The Solution
Disguise’s media server, Solo, delivered the flexibility, power, and seamless integration needed for this visually rich and technically demanding one-off show.
The team used Disguise’s Designer software to map and sync content across a range of formats – from projection to ultra-fine LED and scenic textures.Disguise’s media sever’s support for ProRes playback enabled rapid content testing and reduced transcoding bottlenecks - a crucial timesaver with just hours to finalise the show.
Notch integration was used to create reactive, glitch-based elements that distorted the train set in real time, making the stage feel alive.Designer enabled pre-programming and visualisation of the curved, multi-surface setup – helping the team refine details before arriving at the venue.
The ability to quickly react, update content and sync across formats made Disguise an essential part of the production pipeline.
Disguise allowed us to handle high-res content across multiple layers and textures accurately and efficiently. With such a short turnaround, that flexibility was everything – and it worked flawlessly.
Video Director