Central Cee scales his global tour with Disguise’s X1, X2, and GX 3

Central Cee’s Can’t Rush Greatness tour spanned 50 dates across four continents, taking the huge global production from major arenas and festivals to smaller venues across Europe, North America and Asia. For Disguise video programmer and operator Alex Loftie and the team, the challenge was to maintain content creator Sam Lisher’s creative vision across every stop without rebuilding the system for each venue, whether they were playing an intimate gig, a festival stage, or a major arena. 

Alex and the team were amongst the first to use the Disguise X Series, Disguise’s software-only solution for visual control, mapping and playback, in order to help them scale their show on the road to suit smaller venues. By integrating Disguise X1 and Disguise X2 into their existing tech stack, they were able to dial content down to fit smaller venue setups and then back up again for Disguise GX 3-powered arena stages in order to effectively drive show visuals for venues at every scale, all while staying within the Disguise ecosystem. 

The challenge

One of the main challenges Alex Loftie and the team faced when working on the visuals for Central Cee’s tour was how to deliver content for varied show sizes. The UK and Australian legs included major arenas such as London’s The O2, Manchester’s Co-op Live, Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena and Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena, while the North American and Asian legs included smaller venues such as Hollywood Palladium, Brooklyn Paramount and UOB LIVE. For these larger venues, the team planned a set design that incorporated one upstage backwall, two large portrait IMAGs, three moving screens and a large scaffolding set that Central Cee could climb upon. Other venues across North America and Asia were smaller, meaning the team had to adapt the visual setup without compromising their creative vision.

With many different tour dates across Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Asia, transportation of kit was another factor that the Central Cee team needed to consider. They were looking for a portable solution that would keep logistics lean and get them up and running the moment they arrived on site.

The solution

Utilising a range of Disguise software and hardware solutions, the Central Cee team were able to build a flexible ecosystem to scale their shows up and down as required, moving between the portable software-only X Series for small venues through to the full power of the GX server range for larger shows.

For the first half of the tour, smaller shows were able to run off a laptop using X1, unlocking full access to Designer and driving playback without the need for a high-performance media server. Following the release of X2, the team expanded its setup to benefit from two 4K DCI outputs to support more complex performances across key festivals including Coachella, as well as venues across Asia. 

“Working with the X Series just made life easy for us. It gave us the ability to access our show files from a small licence key, rather than having to use a larger media server. This meant we could pack light, ease the burden of transporting kit, and essentially just open up a laptop and be ready to go as soon as we arrived at the venue,”  remembers Alex. He explains that making the move from X1 to X2 was simple. “We didn’t have to learn anything new. We just plugged the X2 dongle into our laptop and could immediately open up our show file.“

With X2, the team had all the benefits of X1, but with two 4K outputs rather than one. This meant they no longer had to scale down show visuals to fit onto a single 4K canvas. “We were able to maintain full quality, which meant we didn’t have to compromise our creative vision on the smaller shows,” Alex continues.

The team also used an NDI effect on the portrait IMAG to simulate what looked like a FaceTime call on the big festival screen between Central Cee and the audience, using camera feeds. The effect was part of the show from the beginning of the tour, rather than something introduced specifically through X2.

When they returned to larger venues across Europe and Australia, including The O2, Co-op Live, Qudos Bank Arena and Rod Laver Arena, the team could easily transition back to Disguise’s GX 3 media servers without having to reprogram the show for a different solution.

The results

With a hectic international schedule spanning Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Asia, using the X Series on Central Cee’s tour meant the team could travel with nothing more than a Peli case and a laptop, reducing rental and transport costs as well as easing logistical planning.

But the bigger win was creative. Because the team never left the Disguise ecosystem, anything built or changed on a smaller show, from new songs to updated visuals, could be carried over to the arena stage without reprogramming, saving considerable time. The show scaled with the venues, rather than being rebuilt for them, resulting in a flexible tour that never strayed from the creative vision.