CASE STUDY
Hans Zimmer
Live - The Next Level Tour
Worldwide
Collaborators + Partners
About
Client
Hans Zimmer
Year
2025 - 2026
Reach
600k+ Viewers
Context and Brief
We collaborated once again with Hans Zimmer as part of his creative team on ‘The Next Level World Tour’, an epic journey through sound and visuals that transports audiences into the emotion and cinematic worlds of his most iconic scores.
Our journey with Hans Zimmer began at the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, where we illuminated Buckingham Palace with visuals celebrating the natural world, a truly remarkable moment introduced by Sir David Attenborough and performed by Celeste.
We reunited soon after for ‘Hans Zimmer and Friends: Diamond in the Desert’, reimagining the world of Interstellar inside Dubai’s vast Al Wasl Dome.
Services
Experience & Show Design
Visual Design
Creative Direction
Project Type
Live Show
Creative
Creative Vision + Art Direction
This time, we wanted to deliver screen visuals to amplify the visual design and draw audiences into the storytelling and spectacle of Hans Zimmer's most iconic scores. To achieve this, we immersed ourselves in each track, exploring its musical character, structure, identity and instrumentation.
These insights were then cross-referenced with Hans’s intentions for each piece, allowing us to build a conceptual bridge between the music, the films and the live visual experience. This conceptual framework became the foundation for a fully synchronised animation, seamlessly integrated with the on-stage performances and lighting design.
The engaging and imaginative worlds Hans creates through his soundscapes consistently demonstrate exceptional artistry and compositional skill. To enhance these worlds, we used the screens in multiple ways: as a lighting tool to add emotion, as an extension of the stage architecture, and as a modular surface to blur the boundaries between physical, digital, video and lighting.
Together, these elements extend the worlds on screen into the audience, making Hans and the performers the protagonists of an epic, immersive narrative.
Technical
From a technical perspective, the show relied on a coordinated system of real-time tools, media-server playback, and automated lighting.
At the centre of the setup was Pixera’s 4RS ADA server and ROE Emerald LED panels, whose transparency let a lighting rig sit behind the screen and merge with the visuals. A full Unreal Engine previs matched every fixture and rig movement, allowing us to choreograph how lighting and LED media interacted.
With synced triggers, DMX/OSC control, and networked timing across the system, every layer, generative elements, pre-rendered media, and automated lighting ran in complete lockstep throughout the show.
Thanks to
Hans Zimmer
Steve Kofsky
Semmel Concerts
John Featherstone
The Lightswitch team
The entire creative and production team
Team
Tom Bairstow (Executive Producer / Director)
Guy Smith (Art Director & Creative Lead)
Stephanie Way (Producer & Project Lead)
Dan Shufflebotham (Lead Technical Artist & Tech Lead)
Florian Lecoq (Lead Technical Artist & Tech Lead)
Chris Gaughran (Motion Design Director)
Charley Draper (Technical Director)
Dan Richards (Motion Designer)
Kristaps Kazaks (Motion Designer)
Lydia Caplan (Motion Designer)
Ed Brown (Motion Designer)
Luke Heathcote (Technical Artist)
Image Credits
Suzanne Teresa
Hans Zimmer Live
NorthHouse

















