Joji’s Solaris tour turned the stage into a multi-dimensional portal with GX 3+

Joji’s Solaris world tour took fans on a unique visual journey thanks to a new stage design that transformed the traditional concert setup, where singers perform in front of an IMAG screen, into a 3D portal effect that framed Joji’s performance. Built around three large-scale LEDs arranged to give forced perspective, the portal transported audiences into new worlds with every track. 

Cassius Creative and FRAY Studio used Disguise’s GX 3+ media servers and Disguise Designer software to power the portal visuals on the tour, which were created over the course of three months using a mixture of real-time and pre-rendered Notch and TouchDesigner visuals that blended together with live video feeds of Joji performing.

The Challenge

For the Cassius Creative and FRAY Studio teams, moving away from a conventional stage design was the biggest challenge involved in the Solaris tour. “We needed to give Joji's music, which is cinematic and hugely varied, an equally dramatic physical presence,” says Adam Young, Co-Founder and Creative Director at FRAY Studio.

To do this, the team needed to not only create immersive video content for a unique multi-LED setup. They also had to push that content into the Z-axis, so that beat-driven effects didn't just pulse on a 2D screen, but travelled physically through the depth of a 3D portal, putting Joji at the centre of the world around him. On top of this, the team also had to ensure the portal effect would work from every angle and every seat in an arena, without breaking immersion. 

The Solution

To create the visuals, the team began by developing the concept for each song before analysing how those concepts sat together as a whole show. This helped to develop a universal visual language before production started. 

Next, Disguise’s Designer software was used to previsualise how content would look from different parts of each venue. “Designer was central to retaining the forced perspective we needed to pull off the portal effect,” Adam continues. “From front-on, much of the screen surface was hidden, but from the sides those same areas became very visible, which made laying out content genuinely difficult. Being able to check how the visuals looked before arriving on site was essential.” Designer also enabled the team to more easily combine both pre-rendered and real-time Notch and TouchDesigner visuals, with TouchDesigner piped in via RenderStream so it could sit on the same timeline as everything else in Designer.

Once the Designer previsualisation process was complete, the six-week production phase began. This phase involved building the stage design out of three ROE CB5 LEDs, arranged in forced perspective to act as the main canvas for the video portal. A ROE Vanish was then used for the rear screen, which was used to push lighting and special effects. 

All the LED visuals on the show were then powered by a GX 3+ media server. “We wanted as much power under the hood as possible,” Adam reveals. “We were pushing out a lot of pixels and didn't want processing to be what held us back. With TouchDesigner in particular, we had some ambitious, processor-heavy looks in mind, and the GX 3+ was really the only option that would get us there. We also knew it was powerful enough that we only needed a single unit to drive all our visuals while keeping latency to a minimum. That helped us keep our hire costs lower and made the system much easier to look after on the road.”

The Results

The team’s work meant fans around the globe could see Joji perform across a stage that had seemingly no beginning or end. “The forced perspective worked so well that Cassius were even able to build a custom platform for Joji, so that he could float across the stage at different heights and angles, while still maintaining that portal effect,” says Adam. 

The result was an illusion of extreme stage depth, with video that could drive lighting, and lighting that could trigger reactions in the video seamlessly to display everything from giant green eyeballs to starry red spheres. For Adam, one of the highlights was the "Daylight" track, the only one with visuals in black and white. “Combined with contrasting, opposing movements across the different portal layers, it made the track feel incredibly dynamic and otherworldly,” he explains. “There was even a moment where we had automated lasers, hidden behind the levitating platform, that formed four walls of light around Joji. That kind of visual was exactly what we were hoping to achieve when we first started planning the tour. We're so proud of how stage architecture, video, lighting and effects came together as one, and how together, they produced something so big that still feels completely intimate. It truly reflects the scale a Joji show deserves.”