Live Hologram Tour 2025 – Projection Technology for the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn & Niklas Liepe

01. The Challenge

For their autumn 2025 tour, the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn and star violinist Niklas Liepe planned a format never before seen on a concert stage: George Frideric Handel and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy appear as living holograms, narrating, reacting – attending their own music. The composers' AI avatars were created by our partner inventive studios from historical image sources; photon was responsible for making them work on stage.

The conditions were demanding: eight concerts in eight cities – from the NDR Konzerthaus Hannover via the Konzerthaus Berlin to Hamburg's Laeiszhalle – and exclusively classical concert halls, meaning no conventional touring production: hardly any rigging points, delicate stages, no pre-build days. Between arrival, orchestra rehearsal and doors, only a few hours remained for set-up and dismantling. And the projection surface had to stay invisible until the composers appeared.

02. Our Solution

The hologram effect was created by rear projection onto a custom-tailored superfine gauze (8 × 2.4 m): a fabric so fine that it virtually disappears in the darkened stage set – until the avatar projected from behind brings it to life. The light source was a Panasonic PT-RZ120 laser projector, carried with two interchangeable lenses to adapt the throw distance to each hall's stage geometry.

The gauze was supported by a free-standing truss goalpost on lifts – without a single rigging point in the hall, gentle on historic stages and workable in every venue. Playback ran on a media server with cue control, so every appearance of the composers hit its musical mark. To let the holograms converse with Niklas Liepe and the audience, we added discreet sound reinforcement with dB Technologies VIO X15, mixed on Yamaha DM3, plus a Shure Axient wireless system – balanced against the unamplified orchestral sound. For the delicate gauze we built our own tube transport solution that carried the fabric crease-free from city to city, ready to hang in minutes. Video technology, audio and tour support – all from a single source.

03. The Result

Eight concerts between 1 and 23 November 2025, eight different halls, and the same moment of wonder every night: when Handel and Mendelssohn appeared, the technology behind them stayed invisible. The lean touring set-up proved itself in every venue – from the Kurhaus Wiesbaden to Stuttgart's Liederhalle, where even Germany's ZDF Morgenmagazin reported live from the production.

A concert format that opens classical music to new audiences – and a fine example that the best technology is the kind you only notice when an 18th-century composer takes a bow.