Panasonic Connect Europe, a leading audiovisual technology provider, partnering with the Cercle Odyssey world tour, is transforming festival-goers’ experiences of live entertainment by elevating 360° projection beyond what traditional concerts have achieved.
As the first large-scale touring concert of its kind, Cercle Odyssey employs Panasonic’s 3-Chip DLP projectors to reinvent immersive cinematic storytelling by synchronising 4K visuals with live music.
From April to June 2025, Cercle Odyssey is set to perform for more than 150,000 spectators in 30 shows across 15 dates in Mexico City, Los Angeles, and Paris.
Music meets art for an immersive experience
Cercle Odyssey, designed and directed by Derek Barbolla, the founder and artistic director of Cercle, combines the creativity of world-renowned musicians like Moby and Empire of the Sun with that of visual artists.
Drawing inspiration from Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, Cercle Odyssey transforms the concert format into an immersive artistic experience that explores the connection between humans and nature.
Cercle Odyssey is the brainchild of Cercle, a diverse artistic movement known for organising concerts, festivals, and immersive experiences that creatively highlight the work of celebrated artists in distinctive global venues, such as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
“Cercle Odyssey’s partnership with Panasonic showcases our shared ambitions: to push technological boundaries and reinvent immersive experiences that emotionally resonate with, and unite audiences – whilst making them as accessible as possible to global audiences,” says Barbolla.
“The 360° projections delivered by Panasonic – synchronised with live music – enables spectators to experience live entertainment and visual storytelling like never before.”
Cutting-edge native 4K projection
To realise this ambitious, large-scale immersive experience at every concert, Cercle Odyssey will use 2,300m² of projection space on the walls and ceiling of each venue.
Immersive event production specialists, ETC Onlyview, will install 20 Panasonic PT-RQ50K 50,000lm 3-Chip DLP 4K laser projectors, featuring Panasonic’s wide-angle, short-throw ET-D3QW200 lens to project 360° visuals onto the walls.
Each panel will feature two RQ50Ks stacked and rear-projected, engaging up to 5,000 spectators per concert with a brightness of 100,000 lumens and impressive visuals. The RQ50K provides extraordinary brightness and native 4K resolution (4096 x 2160), resulting in cinematic image quality complemented by rich, vibrant colours, free from distortion.
The RQ50K provides up to 20,000 hours of maintenance-free operation and is simple to install, transport, and adjust compared to LED screens, making it ideal for large-scale, live immersive events. Additionally, Cercle Odyssey will utilise six compact PT-RQ35K projectors, delivering 30,000lm of brightness, which are subtly placed by the stage to project 4K images onto the ceiling.
Bringing sustainability to live events
Sustainability is a focus for Cercle Odyssey, with the tour designed to minimise its carbon footprint. All sound, lighting, and projection equipment is sourced locally, reducing transport-related emissions. Using projectors instead of LED screens reduces energy consumption, especially for the large projection areas in each concert.
Hartmut Kulessa, head of marketing visual systems at Panasonic Connect Europe, says: “We believe images have the power to connect and move people. As Cercle Odyssey’s technical partner for video projection, Panasonic is pioneering new frontiers in immersive storytelling.
“Our industry-leading 4K projectors bring these moments to life, enabling audiences to engage with the future of large-scale, sustainable events, today.”
Panasonic Connect recently shared insights into delivering sustainable immersive experiences.
