CHARLI XCX AT COACHELLA 2025

Cour Design created a sublime set of stylised visual effects for Charli XCX’s Coachella 2025 performance, which featured guest appearances from Lorde, Troye Sivan, and Billie Eilish. In crafting the show, they used a variety of practical and computer-generated approaches to live camera manipulation to arrive at a singular concert atmosphere perfectly suited to the superstar’s Brat-era aesthetics.

Cour Design’s Mike Kluge worked in a totally intuitive way. As he explains, “Everything you see is something I just tried in the moment, and the wider creative team liked it, so we went with it.”

The creative team prepared extensively, gleaning steadicam footage from previous shows to test and treat effects. With Notch, they created a 3D previsualisation of the Coachella stage to see what it would all look like within the context of the performance.

They also used Notch for all of the actual show, aiming for digital effects that looked and felt like analogue photography, complete with “in-camera” stylings like motion blur, low frame rate, double exposure, lens distortion, and in-your-face strobes to match the singer’s balance of visual minimalism and sonic maximalism.

Instead of hammering a constant slew of material throughout the night, the team chose restraint, making moves only when they needed to augment specific moments. With such an approach, each intervention resonated with the utmost impact.

The show received unanimous praise, with laudatory reviews in everything from Rolling Stone to Billboard, Variety, and the Los Angeles Times.

Additional press coverage:

Rolling Stone, Billboard, Variety, Los Angeles Times.