Queen are one of the defining bands of the last fifty years and Freddie Mercury remains the measure of a frontman. In 2026 the band marked his posthumous 80th birthday and the 40th anniversary of a concert that had not been seen properly since it was filmed.
Nibbs Events were staging the anniversary as a
Playback Live event at the
Roundhouse in London and brought me in to design the campaign and the night around it.
Budapest, 27 July 1986, was the only Queen show in Hungary and the first Western stadium rock concert behind the Iron Curtain. It was also the last filmed performance with Freddie.
Sony Music Vision had the 35mm negative restored in 4K, with the audio remixed from the multitracks, for a national and international IMAX release. Playback Live was the fan night in front of that run, on 3 October. The IMAX release followed on 7 October.
The image already existed. Freddie, the crown and the photograph came from the IMAX poster. I took those assets and built the key art around them. Playback Live supplied the frame: the red linework, the 16:9 device, the title breaking the edge. The palette stayed Queen’s. Yellow for the name. Red for the device. Black for the room. The line had to say what a cinema poster would not. This was a concert film experience, in a live room, not a screening. One layout had to work as a poster, a social post, a web banner, a motion poster and a billboard, without being redrawn each time.
Part way through, the image changed. A 3D render of the room and a crowd, so the campaign gave an insight into the night rather than only the film. Same system. New proof.
It ran in print and in motion. Posters for the London Underground. A TfL carriage poster. Street billboards, including a paired site close to the venue. A motion billboard in France. Social, web, the Roundhouse page and official Queen channels. The animated logo was retimed for the Sony trailer, so it landed on the beat of We Will Rock You.
The campaign got the audience there. The event had to carry the artwork once they were inside. I designed the front of house as a sequence, from the street to the screen. A welcome wall at the top of the stairs, Freddie at life size, so a guest could stand beside him. Banners on the way in and again on the way out. Directional vinyl for the merch, the archive and the levels named for Roger Taylor, Brian May and Freddie. Exhibition signs for the jacket, the Red Special and the drums. VIP floor vinyls and drinks tokens in the bar. A DJ riser built to be reused.
The screen had its own running order. I designed the ingress loop and a film for the DJ set, taking its colour and pace from the immersive lighting so the room felt continuous before the concert took the screen. A Brian May introduction followed, then the film. I designed the exit frame, with a mailing-list QR.
It was the first Playback Live event and the biggest Queen screening since 1986.
