Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia World Tour

Luke Halls Studio worked with Dua Lipa and her team to bring audiences into a brighter future by channelling the past.

Long before the pandemic, Dua Lipa’s team reached out to Luke Halls Studio in search of video content to support the pop star’s second album, Future Nostalgia. Their brief was simple yet overwhelmingly expansive and left room for many possibilities: they were told to follow the album’s namesake and come up with something futuristic that simultaneously recalled the past.

Dua and Creative Director/Stage Designer Es Devlin already had strong motifs and themes they wanted to explore. They had a keen vision to support the bowl-shaped LED screen serving as the hero of the show’s stage design. When COVID-19 postponed the show for two years, that opened up room to develop their ideas without bounds.

As things evolved, the creative team decided to capture multiple distinct decades and refine their looks as explicit worlds influenced by the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, respectively. Their initial theme became more and more prescient as events unfolded, and people worldwide wanted, more and more, to get out and celebrate in a shared space, an activity that now seemed confined to the past.

They used Notch for its hyper-stylised video effects supporting the moods of certain songs. At one point, a nightclub ceiling lowered over Dua and the dancers to make it feel as if they and the audience weren’t at a massive venue but, instead, in a more intimate club setting. They amplified this effect with an echoed blur effect, which added the spaced-out feeling of long exposure.

“Notch helped us transport audiences to a different time and place, supporting Dua’s dynamic stage action and providing a shared experience after two years in isolation.”

Charli Davis, Video Designer, Luke Halls Studio

Additional press coverage:
The Guardian, Variety, Rolling Stone, NYLON.

Credits
Artist: Dua Lipa
Tour Director: Peter Abbott
Music Director: William Bowerman
Stage Design & Creative Direction: Es Devlin Studio
Stage Design Associates: Amalie White & Ellie Wintour
Styling: Lorenzo Posocco
Choreographer: Charm La’Donna
Lighting Design: Matt Pitman, Pixelmappers

Video Design: Charli Davis & Luke Halls, Luke Halls Studio
Animation: Tim Marriott, Mark Todd, Chris Homer, & James Francis
Notch Designer: Ross Marshall
We’re Good Illustrator: Butcher Billy
Video Programmer: Robin Senoner
Video Producers: Jenny Rush, Bridget Vuillermin, & Kat Kemsley
NYC Shoot Producer: Honor Hellon Production