Brompton Technology Powers Immersive Visuals

Brompton Technology's Tessera LED video processing platform is delivering striking visuals for Oscar At The Crown, an immersive theatre production staged in a converted basement beneath London's Tottenham Court Road.

The show demonstrates how high-end LED processing can reshape compact venues into vivid, story-driven environments.

Set in a post-apocalyptic future ravaged by climate change, the production follows a group of exiles who take refuge in an abandoned underground bar. To stay hopeful, they stage a nightly, high-energy musical tribute to Oscar Wilde — reimagined with rock music and bold, unrestrained performance.

At the heart of the visual design is a Brompton 4K Tessera SX40 LED video processor, supported by a Tessera XD 10G data distribution unit and redundancy system supplied by Stage Sound Services. The centrepiece is a 10m x 2m INFiLED AR series LED wall with a 2.97mm pixel pitch, hidden behind a two-way mirror that reveals the screen at dramatic points in the performance.

The narrative blends themes of survival, self-expression and pop-culture mythology, incorporating an unexpected fixation on Julie Cooper from The OC. The characters believe she foretold humanity’s downfall via social media — emphasising that Twitter and The OC launched on the same day. This idea culminates in a nine-minute musical sequence in which the once-concealed LED wall erupts into what Video and Projection Designer Nina Dunn calls "a ballistic stained-glass window".

Transforming the basement into a multi-zone performance environment meant integrating a half-tube train carriage, banks of TV screens, a bar, stage and DJ booth. The LED wall, running along an entire side of the room, extends the physical world with Unreal Engine scenes that mirror the set, while also displaying live feeds from three PTZ cameras.

Maintaining colour accuracy was crucial, particularly with the LED wall sitting behind a two-way mirror and with the show's frenetic visual style. "Colour is really important to me, along with the intensity of the image," said Dunn. "I always ride the processor really, really high, and then dim down the content so that if we do need that pinprick sparkle, we can really get it."

Dunn adds that the SX40’s interface was essential for rapid adjustments during the demanding production schedule. "How the interface works is really intuitive. I found that very useful, as was just being able to drag colour to where it was required. It seemed to be that my requests were met really quickly."

The mirror introduced its own technical obstacles, adding a brown tint and reducing brightness. Dunn and the PixelLux team relied on Brompton's Overdrive function to counter these effects. "We found the Overdrive button and hit it to make it push through," Dunn said. "Having something that's reliable that we can hand over to an in-house team who know how to troubleshoot it was really important."

The show blends club-night energy with theatrical storytelling. The LED system supports this dual identity, showing live camera feeds for audience members at the bar, amplifying DJ sets after the performance, and delivering fast-paced visual sequences tied to the performers’ voguing.

"Information in this show is delivered thick and fast," Dunn explained. "One of the roles of video was to try and support the speed of information delivery, because the whole show is about media overload."

Each night ends with the space shifting from performance venue to functioning nightclub, with the screen adapting from storytelling tool to dance-floor backdrop. "What was also amazing, just as a workflow thing, is being able to send content upstream and knowing that it will reach the processor reliably. The signal path felt really true to what we were outputting. That was crucial, especially when you're trying to match costume and lighting states," Dunn concluded. "The show is unique because it's a club night, but it's also a club night with heart because there's a story. Brompton's LED processing makes this blend of theatre and club environment possible, maintaining consistent visual quality from intense performance moments to post-show DJ visuals."

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