The concept for this year’s NBCUniversal Upfront design was to capture a modern abstraction of the curved shape created when the iconic gold curtain at Radio City is tabbed open. Details of strong, operatic architecture that both complements and stands its ground within the massive venue.
The “Hero Wall” is the single most important piece of any Upfront design. It’s where the upcoming network content and movie trailers are shown to excite the audience and create energy in the room. I wanted to fully integrate the hero wall into the set design and make it a character throughout the show. I pitched a wild idea… let’s split the hero wall in half, track it back and forth across the stage to create different compositions, and then seamlessly fuse it together live in front of the audience for our hero content moments. Our fearless producers not only agreed, but leaned into the idea and let us run with it! Was it a risk? Yes. Was it worth it? Hell yes. Thank you to TAIT for accepting the automation challenge, taking all our nearly impossible requests in stride, and even developing new low-profile seaming mechanisms to give us that perfect, clean look. Beyond.