For Dermot Kennedy's live tour, STUFISH created an immersive stage environment that translates the artist's poetic voice into a living landscape.
// 2026
// Theatre, Arena & Stadium Tour
// Worldwide
Drawing direct inspiration from his latest album, the creative direction and scenography embraced Dermot and the band within a world that reflected and transformed with the narrative and emotional weight of the music.
At the heart of the design is a forest. Inspired by themes of fragility, memory and connection to nature in Kennedy’s work, the stage becomes a place suspended between light and darkness, love and loss, life and its edge. Drawing on Irish terrain, mythology and the mysticism of the land, the design blends natural and symbolic elements to evoke a world rooted in the artist’s identity. Woven throughout is a visual language of recurring motifs and references: places, stories and textures that shaped Dermot, reinterpreted as an atmospheric landscape for performance.
The set is shaped by sculptural tree forms, rock-like formations and layered terrain, creating an environment that sits between landscape and artwork. Fabric was used as the primary construction medium, allowing the scenery to remain lightweight, adaptable and transportable while retaining material richness and visual depth. Screens are distributed through the forest at varying depths, introducing a cinematic quality that extends the landscape beyond its physical boundaries and allows lighting, content and silhouette to move seamlessly through the environment.
Designed to transform from theatres to arenas and stadiums, the environment evolved across every scale while preserving the integrity of the original concept. Earthy and elemental, intimate yet monumental, the design balances introspection with spectacle. The forest shifts with the rhythm, mood and atmosphere of the music, moving from tenderness to fracture, from stillness to energy, from enclosed theatrical spaces to performances beneath the open sky.
Rather than creating a literal representation of nature, the scenography embraces abstraction and symbolism. The forest becomes an altar, a clearing where earth meets sky and the man-made dissolves into the organic. Textures feel honest, forms expressive and every layer considered. Throughout the show, the landscape transforms through light, video and movement, unfolding as a visual narrative that mirrors the emotional journey of the music. Together, storytelling, technical ingenuity and material experimentation create a world to get lost in, a single adaptable design capable of delivering a deeply immersive experience across every scale of performance.
Credits
Creative Direction and Set Design STUFISH Lighting design Owen Pritchard – Smith Video and Camera direction Glen Leyser Video content James Lockey, Ashley Park, Lewis Bailey Music director Tim Van Der Kuil Management Jez Couldwell, Liv Plunket, Ed Millett Tour manager & Technical director Ben Pomphrett Built by Ox Event House On site scenic – Polly Phillips Videographer Joel Stagg Rigger Damien Cullinan Sound design Will Donbavand
