Hyde Out

During the pandemic, when festivals were being canceled left and right, a company in Singapore decided to try something different. Instead of shelving their festival, HydeOut, they pivoted to creating a virtual version. That’s when I got the call from long-time collaborators MacWell to join as Creative Director and Showrunner.

The brief was ambitious: 11 virtual concerts in just six months. To pull it off, we had to conceptualize, design, and execute not just the concerts but an entire virtual platform to host them. It was a challenge from day one.

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The Rita Ora Concert

For this case study, I want to focus on the Rita Ora concert, which was one of the highlights of the festival for me.

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The entire festival was designed to take place on a virtual island called Hyde Island, with multiple stages.

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Each stage had its own distinct look and feel, and I created a full backstory for the island to tie everything together. The narrative leaned into a techno-utopian, cyber aesthetic, blending futuristic design with an escapist vibe.

For Rita’s show, we started with her setlist. Once the song list and order were locked in, we designed all the elements: custom 3D objects, transitions, visual effects, and lighting cues. The idea was to create a visual journey that matched her performance.

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We filmed Rita on a green screen with six cameras to capture multiple angles of her performance. From there, the real work began: bringing it all into Unreal Engine. This was a learning curve, as the platform was still developing its real-time lighting capabilities, and we were figuring out cinematics and lighting simultaneously. The team and I worked closely to refine the visuals, get approvals from Rita’s team, and ensure the final product was ready for the live event.

The Bigger Picture

HydeOut wasn’t just about individual shows; it was about creating a full virtual experience. We developed a platform that allowed users to:

• Buy virtual skins, emotes, and merch using a digital currency called Hyde Coins.
• Immerse themselves in the HydeOut world beyond just watching the performances.

While working on Rita’s concert, we were also designing and producing shows for other artists, including:

• Martin Garrix
• Wiz Khalifa
• G-Eazy
• Charli XCX
• DJ Snake
• Tinashe
• Yellow Claw

Each show was unique and tailored to the artist’s style, all while keeping them grounded in the shared visual world of HydeOut.

A Step into the Future

HydeOut also marked the start of my deeper exploration into AI, Web3, and tokens. These technologies played a supporting role in this project but opened doors to new ways of merging creative media with tech. This experience was the first step in a longer journey of integrating cutting-edge tools into creative production.

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