A series of ambitious live arena shows exploring cosmology, quantum mechanics and the origins of life, Professor Brian Cox’s Emergence World Tour shows ”what Tessera was built for”.
Produced by Lateral Event Management, the tour’s Australian leg has been delivered by Creative Technology Australia & New Zealand (CT ANZ), which acted as technical and AV systems integrator. Brompton Technology’s Tessera SX40 LED processors and Tessera XD data distribution units have been powering the visuals on Professor Brian Cox’s Emergence World Tour, delivering large-format LED screens tailored to each individual venue as the arena show has travelled across Australia.
The tour is a series of ambitious live arena shows exploring cosmology, quantum mechanics and the origins of life, combining state-of-the-art LED screens displaying cosmological data, supercomputer simulations and graphics, with advanced lighting and high-end sound design bridging science, philosophy and music.
The information shared by Brompton takes us behind the scenes and reveals the scope of the show. The brief for every stop was the same: maximise the screen size within the constraints of the room.
At ICC Sydney, CT ANZ deployed a 32 by 15 array of ROE Visual CB5 panels for a 3328 by 1560 pixel canvas, with the same CB5 product used in a 30 by 15 panel configuration for Wollongong and Newcastle Entertainment Centre. Brisbane housed the largest screen of the tour, a 36 by 18 panel CB5 build delivering a 3744 by 1872 pixel canvas.
At Exhibition Park in Canberra, a 28 by 5 array of Uniview Tekken 3.9 panels produced a 3584 by 1280 pixel screen, while Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre saw a 21 x 9 panel configuration of ROE Visual Vanish 6 Solid panels for a 3024 x 1296 pixel canvas. Every screen was driven by the same core processing package: two Tessera SX40 processors, one main and one redundant. These were paired with four Tessera XD 10G data distribution units at most venues, with two in Melbourne.
To get the most from each configuration, CT ANZ made use of a range of Tessera’s colour and image features. Extended Bit Depth was used to add extra steps of brightness to the panels, helping to eliminate banding, while Dark Magic preserved clarity and shadow detail through the show’s darker, more immersive sequences. Screens were run at 10-bit colour to match the mastering of the show content, and On-Screen Colour Adjustment (OSCA) was used at every venue to keep each screen looking uniform and visually seamless, particularly important on the screens with a tighter pixel pitch where viewing distances were closer.
Given the show’s scale and the demands of a fast-turnaround tour, CT ANZ also relied on Tessera’s workflow features to keep every load-in on schedule. The main and redundant SX40 processors were stacked so that colour and brightness corrections applied automatically to both, while Frame Store was used to load test patterns during the build and hold a backup graphic in reserve. Live Control of brightness, freeze and a one-second fade to blackout was handed to the touring media server operator, providing direct control of the screen during the show itself. With elements of the tour filmed and streamed, redundant 12G SDI feeds, one per processor, kept the video signal secure throughout.
“Roof load limits were probably the biggest challenge,” says Herman Putter, Project Manager at Creative Technology Australia & New Zealand. “The goal was always the largest possible screen at roughly a 2:1 ratio, and as high-resolution as we could get while still fitting on a UHD raster.”
Putter also points to the load-in process itself as proof of how the system performs under pressure. Load-in typically began the morning of the show; the screen was built by lunchtime, with a few module swaps in the early afternoon before sound check and rehearsal if required, then straight into the show that night. Being able to identify a panel from the front with a dead LED or a bent louvre, and point the climbing technician straight to the correct module using the LDM test pattern, made a real difference to how smoothly those turnarounds went.
Having crossed Australia, Professor Brian Cox’s Emergence World Tour continues through UK arenas this autumn, including a show at The O2 in London on 23 October. North America is next, with a first show in Miami, in November 2026, and Canada in January 2027, starting in Vancouver.
Touring at this scale, and at this pace, is exactly the environment Tessera was built for,” says Sebastian Kanabar, Head of Sales (APAC) at Brompton Technology. “It’s fantastic to see CT ANZ getting this level of image quality and reliability out of the SX40 and XD combination across such different venues in a matter of weeks. We’re proud our processing is helping bring Professor Cox’s vision of the universe to audiences across Australia.”
We end with a quote from Professor Brian Cox, who said: “I’ve loved creating Emergence – it’s the most ambitious live show I’ve ever written. I’ve been very lucky to collaborate with a wonderful group of scientists, musicians, filmmakers and graphic artists to bring cosmology, biology, philosophy and history to the largest and most advanced LED screens available, with the best sound and lights I could find. I hope the show is an all-encompassing experience, and I hope it leaves everyone, whether they love science or music or history, or simply contemplating the beauty of Nature, with something new to think about.”