Finally night time’s BRIT Awards, held for the primary time at Manchester’s Co-op Dwell, manufacturing designer Misty Buckley unveiled a wholly new set for the ceremony, that includes 5 interconnected phases animated by shifting towers and bridges.
Buckley, a multi-Emmy Award-winning designer whose credit span international excursions for artists together with Elton John, U2, Stormzy and Ariana Grande, in addition to main ceremonies from the London 2012 Paralympics Closing Ceremony to the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Video games, has lengthy helped form the visible language of stay efficiency. Designing for a brand new venue, nonetheless, introduced a special set of issues for Buckley and the workforce, which included government producer Sally Wooden, Sony CEO Jason Iley and director Phil Heyes.
Wallpaper* sat down with Buckley forward of the present to debate what it takes to create a stage for one of many UK’s greatest nights in music – and the way she approached the ceremony’s transfer to Manchester.
5 interconnected efficiency zones permit the ceremony to unfold fluidly, with artists shifting between phases quite than returning to a single focus
(Picture credit score: Misty Buckley)
Wallpaper*: That is the primary yr the BRIT Awards are being staged at Co-op Dwell in Manchester. How did you start approaching the design for a totally new venue?
Misty Buckley: The transfer to Manchester introduced an actual alternative to reimagine the BRITs. Whenever you work in the identical venue yr after yr, there’s inevitably a level of muscle reminiscence; you get very aware of the venue. Shifting to Co-op Dwell was a real reset. It allowed us to step again and rethink every thing: circulation, scale, and the way the viewers inhabits the house. It wouldn’t work to easily copy over the BRITs format from London. It’s a really completely different house to the O2 because it feels extremely intimate regardless of its giant scale.
All of us felt refreshed and excited to stage this present in Manchester – a metropolis with a rare and influential music legacy. I feel the Manchester workforce is fairly excited to host a serious worldwide music present and we needed to mirror that inclusivity and collaboration within the set design.
Preliminary sketches established the central round stage and radiating efficiency platforms, positioning the viewers throughout the motion quite than round it
(Picture credit score: Misty Buckley)
W*: Are you able to discuss us by means of the core concept behind this yr’s set? What was the start line?
MB: We beloved the concept that ‘The BRITs have landed in Manchester’. That turned a place to begin for the entire design. Somewhat than a conventional end-on stage, we’ve remodeled Co-op Dwell into a totally immersive setting; one thing that sits someplace between an area station and a touchdown web site, with 5 interconnected efficiency phases, appearing virtually like portals. Every one prompts with a efficiency, then palms over to the following.
The spacecraft concept isn’t meant to be literal sci-fi, it’s extra a metaphor for arrival, risk and ahead motion.
A panoramic LED backdrop wraps the world, shifting environments all through the night time and creating a way of scale that reads each in-room and on display screen
(Picture credit score: Misty Buckley)
W*: What had been the primary photos, references or supplies that went onto your moodboard?
MB: I typically start with mood-board imagery, however this time it was extra instinctive. I may see the design in my head, very clearly and went straight into sketching. The central concept was a number of kinetic towers virtually like industrial chandeliers – referencing Manchester’s industrial heritage. The towers are populated with a mixture of stable and clear LED panels alongside built-in lights, permitting them to shift character relying on the efficiency. They’ll really feel elegant and light-weight or dense and architectural. Crucially, they’re additionally purposeful: while you’re shifting rapidly between 5 phases, you want gadgets that permit for fast resets. The towers can descend to the ground and act as closedown screens, serving to us transition between performances, seamlessly.
The BRITs sit at an fascinating intersection; they’re celebratory, however they’re additionally about cultural relevance. They want scale, however additionally they want that British grit and authenticity.
Misty Buckley
Behind the world, there’s an enormous panoramic display screen that creates expansive vistas and absolutely immerses the viewers within the environments designed by our content material collaborators, North Home.
Suspended above the central stage is a UFO-like construction, reinforcing the thought of arrival and anchoring the house visually from above. At key moments, bridges descend to bodily join the efficiency phases, permitting artists to maneuver between them and emphasising the thought of 1 steady, interconnected setting.
The design centres round kinetic towers – vertical constructions that mix lighting rigs with semi-transparent LED surfaces
(Picture credit score: Misty Buckley)
W*: Is there a specific technical or structural factor this yr that proved particularly difficult?
MB: Regardless of the Co-op having vital weight loading capability across the area, we nonetheless have the inevitable challenges which might be synonymous with a multi act award present. When you hold PA, Lighting, screens and so forth, the load allowance is considerably decreased. Add to that, my two big chandeliers and a UFO and weight is rather a lot.
We naturally need to accommodate each artist’s artistic and their ‘dream’ set, so there’s a delicate stability that our unbelievable Band Manufacturing Supervisor, Maggie Mouzakatis has to seek out.
Every tower can transfer independently, permitting them to shift from architectural presence to atmospheric lighting gadgets
(Picture credit score: Misty Buckley)
W*: How do you design a set that works each for the stay viewers within the area and for hundreds of thousands watching on tv?
MB: It’s all the time a balancing act. Within the area, it’s about scale and immersion; you need the viewers to really feel fully surrounded by the vitality of it.
For tv, although, you’re pondering in a different way. It’s about framing, depth and the way the digicam strikes by means of the house. This yr’s multi-stage format actually helps that. It provides Phil Heyes, the director, unbelievable flexibility; layering motion within the foreground and background, taking pictures throughout the world, revealing one stage from one other. Finally, you’re designing in two methods without delay; in three dimensions for the viewers within the room, and in shifting frames for the viewers at dwelling. When these two experiences complement one another, the present actually involves life.
Bridges between phases allow performers to transition seamlessly throughout the set, reinforcing the thought of a steady journey
(Picture credit score: Misty Buckley)
W*: What does the design timeline for one thing just like the BRITs truly appear like, from first dialog to ultimate construct?
MB: The method actually begins virtually as quickly because the earlier present ends; with reflection. We take a look at what labored and what was much less profitable. Often we’ve round eight months to design the BRITs, however this time the conversations began earlier, round March 2025, when the transfer to Manchester was first being explored.
By June, we had a robust imaginative and prescient that the entire workforce shared confidence in. From there, it strikes into months of drawing, modelling, refining and aligning with manufacturing, lighting, video after which the conversations with artists about their particular person units.
By the point we lastly step into the world, the present has already been designed dozens of occasions on paper; fastidiously examined, challenged and refined after which it’s all methods go.
Misty Buckley
The bodily construct comes comparatively late within the course of and we’ve a really restricted time to load every thing in, so the method is underpinned by an unlimited quantity of digital planning and collaboration. By the point we lastly step into the world, the present has already been designed dozens of occasions on paper; fastidiously examined, challenged and refined after which it’s all methods go.
The towers descend into the ground between performances, appearing as close-down screens and enabling fast resets all through the stay broadcast
(Picture credit score: Misty Buckley)
W*: You’ve designed the BRIT Awards for a few years now. How has the present advanced throughout that point, and has your personal strategy to it modified?
MB: This will probably be my eighth BRIT Awards as Manufacturing Designer, which feels each surreal and barely ageing, if I’m trustworthy. However I’m extremely pleased with it. I truly started my profession 24 years in the past as a design assistant on the BRITs, working for Invoice Laslett. I used to be there from 2002 to 2005 earlier than heading off to develop my very own voice and profession as a Manufacturing Designer. Then, in 2017, Jason Iley [Chairman of the BRITs Committee from 2017-2019] invited me again to design the present in my very own proper. It felt like a genuinely round second. Jason put a substantial amount of belief in me, which I’ll all the time be pleased about.
The present itself has advanced enormously. Within the early 2000s, the artists had been maybe extra outrageous of their behaviour. It was the Brit pop period so it was edgy and thrilling – there was a sure unpredictability to all of it and we most likely acquired away with much more below the well being and security radar.
It was the Britpop period – edgy and thrilling – with a sure unpredictability to all of it and we most likely acquired away with much more below the well being and security radar.
Misty Buckley
Right now, the creativity continues to be daring, however the manufacturing values are much more subtle. The technical expectations are greater, there may be extra emphasis on full artistic manufacturing of every artist’s efficiency and the extent of integration between set, lighting and display screen content material is rather more superior.
For me personally, it’s essential to strategy annually as if it’s the primary. No two reveals ought to ever look the identical. Some years I lean into one thing extra theatrical, different years it’s cleaner and extra architectural. I additionally attempt to join the set design to the BRIT Award itself (this yr’s is designed by Matthew Williamson) because it creates a refined narrative thread by means of the present, which I feel provides it cohesion and id past a single night time.
Industrial references knowledgeable the aesthetic, drawing loosely on Manchester’s constructed panorama
(Picture credit score: Misty Buckley)
W*: What makes the BRITs distinctive from a manufacturing design perspective?
MB: The BRITs sit at an fascinating intersection; they’re celebratory, however they’re additionally about cultural relevance. They want scale, however additionally they want that British grit and authenticity.
There’s a sure British tone; a stability of confidence and irreverence, that shapes the design language. It might probably’t really feel too polished or too ceremonial. It has to really feel alive and have a little bit of edge, that you could’t all the time get away with on different ceremonies.
As a result of the UK music scene is so various, wealthy and iconic, the set must be adaptable. It should maintain every thing from stripped-back intimacy to full-scale spectacle in a single cohesive setting.
W*: Your work is inherently ephemeral. When the lights go down and the world empties, what does that second really feel like for you?
MB: Truthfully? I’d like to say I sit quietly within the empty area and mirror on the artistic journey – however the actuality is often far much less poetic. By the point the lights go down, I’m already mentally juggling the following six initiatives, planning meals for my children, enthusiastic about laundry, and doubtless packing a suitcase to get to the Oscars on time. The reflection tends to come back slightly later, typically when issues are calmer and I can correctly course of what we constructed and what it meant. However in these quieter moments, what I do really feel very clearly is gratitude. I genuinely love what I do. Designing one thing on that scale, collaborating with such proficient individuals, and attending to create environments that maintain these cultural moments; it’s a privilege. I really feel very fortunate that that is my job.
Supply: Wallpaper
