Framesync powers a living Saudi Arabia Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka with Disguise
Immersive Experiences
At Expo 2025 Osaka, Framesync helped bring the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Pavilion to life across six months of exhibitions, performances and changing creative content.
The second-largest pavilion at the Expo 2025 was designed as a Saudi village, with stone-clad buildings and narrow streets leading to immersive galleries, a Music Studio, Visual Arts Studio and the central Saudi Courtyard. Under the theme "Together for a better future", the experience explored Saudi culture alongside the Kingdom's cities, marine conservation, global sport and future projects.
Framesync joined A Loud Minority's (ALM) technical show operations team in March 2025, overseeing video system programming and operation, projection mapping, control systems and content management. Disguise GX 3 and EX 3+ media servers powered more than seven spaces throughout the pavilion. ALM provided a multidisciplinary technical team of 25 specialists and programmers across show control, audio, lighting and video departments supporting the pavilion operations and production teams.
The Challenge
With the Expo opening in April 2025, the Framesync team gained access for on-site projection testing in late March. This dictated a short commissioning window for technically demanding spaces including Sustainable Seas and Evolving Cities, where limited physical reference points required full room scans for projector alignment.
Once open, the pavilion needed to operate reliably every day for six months. Osaka's heat, humidity and typhoon season added pressure to the outdoor courtyard and server rooms.
Content presented another challenge. New work entered the pavilion each week, requiring teams to update Disguise timelines and preview content after visitors left. With limited storage capacity, Framesync also needed a clear process for moving, archiving and retrieving files.
Additionally, many spaces were operated day to day by pavilion staff, so controls and recovery processes needed to work for non-specialist users.
The Solution
Framesync joined the project after Disguise systems had been specified, taking responsibility for programming, operation and content management across the pavilion. The system design used different server types to support the requirements of each space.
EX 3+ media servers powered galleries built around pre-rendered, multi-surface playback. Located in a remote server room and connected to the projectors via fibre, they provided the output capacity required for the mapped gallery surfaces. Most were configured as a director-and-actor pair running a single timeline.
The Saudi Courtyard, Music Studio and other spaces with frequently changing content used GX 3 media servers. These environments needed greater flexibility for weekly updates, live performances and generative content, including Notch effects. Artists could also connect their own laptops and bring visuals into performances.
As an avid Notch user, the GX range has always been my favourite. I think they generally provide the right balance between playback capabilities, output number, and generative power.
Creative Director at Framesync
A consistent Disguise platform across the pavilion also helped Framesync manage the compressed commissioning and maintenance periods. Servers could be swapped in and out for overnight maintenance with confidence, knowing that the software and hardware would perform steadily across different machines
When the team encountered an issue with a projector lens configuration, Framesync used Disguise to create an alternative projection study. This gave the client and technical teams a clear reference for a configuration change that had to be carefully timed to happen during the limited out-of-hour down times.
The Result
The Saudi Arabia Pavilion welcomed more than two million visitors during Expo 2025, with a single-day record of 24,142. More than 175 events took place within its first 60 days, as part of a programme planned to exceed 700 events across the Expo.
Its Evolving Nightly Show continued to change throughout the six-month run, incorporating new work created within the pavilion rather than relying on a fixed programme.
"Seeing the reaction of the audience every day, and being able to amaze and entertain our Japanese hosts the way we collectively did, felt like an honour and a true moment of connection and cultural exchange," says Michael.
The pavilion received several international awards, including Gold at the Expo 2025 Architecture and Landscape Awards and two Gold awards at the World Expolympics Awards 2025. It also received the Expo Innovation Award for Technological Innovation.
For Framesync, Expo 2025 also became part of a longer-term commitment to Japan, contributing to the company's decision to establish Framesync Japan and serve the local market.
"Six months, daily operation, over two million visitors, with a courtyard show that was never the same two weeks running. Every single person involved in making that pavilion a reality makes us proud to have been a small part of it."