CASE STUDY

Disguise powers
the IICON stage
for a uniquefestival experience
at Glastonbury
The 2023 Glastonbury Festival attracted headliners
like Arctic Monkeys, Guns N’ Roses, the legendary
Yusuf/Cat Stevens and the UK’s last live touringperformance by Sir Elton John. In the past few
years, Glastonbury has also become known foranother phenomenon: the immersive AV content
showcased on its IICON Stage.
www.disguise.one

SummaryIn this case study you will see how Block9, witha team of experts (including Scott Millar, andCreative Technology) used Disguise to displayinnovative and dynamic visuals on the IICON
Stage for each day of the festival.
In 2019, the IICON Stage debuted at Glastonbury’s Block9 as ahome for large-scale audiovisual performances. Dominated bya giant, anonymised head, the stage has been described as a
pseudo-religious monument to the terrifying new realities
emerging in our digital, post-truth age.
The goal of the stage is to bring together incredible, diverse
dance music with projection-mapped, real-time visuals fromResolume and Notch mixed with lighting and lasers to create aone-of-a-kind festival experience.
“The sculpture of the head looks incredible during the day, withno technical wizardry, but becomes a true spectacle at night
when the AV content kicks in,” says Video Technical Producer,
Scott Millar.

Image credits: Tom Marshak

The challenge
While the technical requirements for the 2023 IICON Stage
were relatively straightforward, the content on stage required
use of many diﬀerent aspects of Disguise’s end-to-end
solution. The show was split into two sections, with themajority of the evening running on Disguise GX 2C and VX 2
media servers as compositors taking inputs from cameras andResolume VJ software, mixing them with a 3D Notch block andoutputting them to seven projectors on the stage’s 3D head.
The second part of the evening was a 15-minute AV showcalled IICON AV:3D, in which a video and spatial audio track
played back before the headliner each night.
The show used a huge amount of NDI video streams and SDI
capture for inputs. On the output side, seven Panasonic 35K
lumen projectors ran at 1920 x 1200 along with a 1080p LED
video screen within the Visor.

Image credits: Tom Marshak

“The biggest challenges for
Glastonbury were being
outdoors in a ﬁeld where
everything is built from scratch,including the structure. Having
a reliable system, pre andpost-Disguise, plus the tools
within Disguise for solving thechallenges of line-up during theshort nights in summer andcomplex compositing setups,
was key.”
Scott Millar
Video Technical Producer

The solution
Connie Glover led Creative Technology in providing theDisguise media servers and projectors, working closely with
Millar to devise the infrastructure and systems for the IICON
Stage. They also used equipment from Bild Studios, whoprovided the Disguise OmniCal cameras and VJ machines.
Knowing they had well-maintained, modern equipment was key
to the project. With the IICON Stage running for its third year ina row in 2023, they were able to modify their plans from theprevious year to reduce kit and simplify the setup.
Due to the nature of the stage’s build, its unique shape and thetime available for the projection lineup, Creative Technology
successfully deployed the Disguise OmniCal system with sixcameras to align the projectors and mesh of the stage. The
Creative Technology team declared it was “a fantastic tool”
which gave them great conﬁdence in their ability to tackle
alignment tasks during the four shortest nights of the year.
All content within Disguise ran on a 2880 x 2880 UV map,
which was applied to the stage’s head structure as a direct
map. Michael Wilson and Millar developed the workﬂow
between the Resolume project, where the content was mapped
directly to the UV map, and Disguise, where it passed throughNotch to allow dynamic lighting and shadows to be applied in3D.

Image credits: Tom Marshak

Results
Disguise proved itself to be a versatile end-to-end solution for
the innovative content that Glastonbury fans ﬂock to the IICON
Stage to experience. The ability to play back Notch blocks
within the server, then jump straight to video and audio
playback plus the time-saving advantages of the OmniCalsystem were the reasons why Disguise was the perfect choicefor Block9’s creative ambition.
The IICON Stage wrapped its third successful appearance at
Glastonbury leaving festival-goers wondering what amazing
immersive content the stage will serve up in 2024.

Image credits: Tom MarshakDisguise equipment usedDESIGNEROMNICALGX 2CDesigner is the ultimate software
to visualise, design, andsequence projects at every stage,
from concept all the way throughto showtime.

Our camera-based projector
calibration system, OmniCal
quickly captures a point cloud of
your projection surface andaccurately calibrates projectors.

The GX 2C media server
delivered dynamic Notch video
content across the show’s
innovative visual canvas.

Find out more

Find out more

Find out more

In Partnership with
Block9: Gideon Berger and Stephen Gallagher
Producer: Stephanie Allen and Alexa Pearson
Video Technical Producer: Scott Millar
Production Support: Dasha Legge
3D Lead & Senior Notch Artist: Mike Wilson
AV:3D Editor: Dylan Byrne
VJs: Matteo Zamagni and Claudio Giambusso
Lighting Design: Projection Stuﬀ Ltd
Disguise Servers, Projectors and Infrastructure:
Creative Technology led by Connie Glover
Omnical cameras and VJ Servers: Bild Studios
Disguise Operator: Gwil Huws
Tech & Projectionist: Pete Tilling
Tech & Projectionist: Jon Sharpe

Get in touch
Curious to know more about us?
Want to master our production toolkit?
Need support on your project?
Our team will be happy to speak to you,whatever your query.
Get in touche-learning programme

Get Started