Opening a Destination: The VIA Riyadh Grand Opening

Inside the VIA Riyadh grand-opening gala (2023) — set and environment design by Patrick Larsen, Studio Bound, produced by FiveCurrents, for a launch headlined by a performance from John Legend in the Kingdom's first St. Regis hotel district.

Opening a destination is its own kind of performance. For the grand opening of VIA Riyadh — a new shopping and entertainment district in the Saudi capital, home to the Kingdom's first St. Regis — I designed the set and environment for the inaugural gala. John Legend headlined. FiveCurrents produced.

First impression

A grand-opening only happens once. The job is to make a new place feel like the most important room in the city for one night. The design has to match the ambition of the destination and still build an intimate stage for one artist in the middle of a brand-new district. Everything from the approach to the seat has to feel like the place is finished, even if the rest of it isn't yet.

Aerial view of the VIA Riyadh courtyard at night, paths and plazas lined with thousands of warm candles weaving between buildings. — An aerial view of the gala environment — thousands of candles tracing the new VIA Riyadh district from above and turning the whole courtyard into a single luminous room.

Sunken candle-lit gala stage seen across reflecting pools and palm trees, framed by warmly-lit limestone facades and skybeams. — The full venue: a sunken stage with grand piano, reflecting pools and palm trees, set inside the limestone canyon of the new district. Set and environment design by Patrick Larsen, Studio Bound.

A stage for one piano

With John Legend headlining, the room had to work as a concert and a gala at the same time. I shaped the environment so a single grand piano could anchor it, then open out into the wider gala around it. Not a lot on stage. Most of the work is in the light and the geometry around it.

Candle-lit gala stage with bamboo VIA-monogram screen and grand piano, surrounded by pools of water and uplit purple terraces above. — A closer view of the stage — bamboo VIA-monogram screens, grand piano and a candle-rimmed reflecting pool — with the surrounding terraces washed in purple and magenta light.

John Legend playing a grand piano on a candle-rimmed stage, framed by an architectural bamboo screen with the VIA Riyadh monogram behind him. — The gala was built around a headline performance from John Legend — environment and stage design by Patrick Larsen, Studio Bound for FiveCurrents. VIA Riyadh Opening, Saudi Arabia 2023.

Tight stage view of John Legend at a grand piano with a glowing wall of fire-orange candle light behind tall bamboo screens. — The set is engineered so a single grand piano can anchor the room — warm candle light, brass-toned screens and tightly controlled focus on the artist.

Part of what's happening in Riyadh

VIA sits alongside Souk Wonders and Terhal at Diriyah Season in my recent portfolio. A lot of my Gulf work has been like this — the moment a country opens a new place to the world.

John Legend at a grand piano on a candle-lit stage with a stylised blue mountain landscape projected behind him through bamboo screens. — A later moment in the show — the bamboo screens become a stylised mountain landscape behind the piano, shifting the room from gala to concert in a single cue. VIA Riyadh Opening 2023.