Expo 2025 OSAKA

Raven AV Creates Immersive Expo Experience with SP Grid

Collaboration with artist COSMICAT brings interactive innovation to the Saudi Arabia Pavilion

THE ROAD TO EXPO 2025 Marking the second time a World Expo has been hosted in Osaka, Japan, Expo 2025 welcomed around 28 million visitors across six months to explore over 100 national exhibition pavilions. Centred around a theme of “designing future society for our lives”, many pavilions utilised the latest technologies to showcase innovation in the fields of health and longevity, sustainability and AI. Among the most popular pavilions, the Saudi Arabia Pavilion fused traditional architecture and immersive storytelling to create memorable visitor experiences reflecting the nation’s rich heritage and vision for the future. Indeed, the pavilion went on to earn recognition as the Best Large Pavilion and Best Exterior Architecture at the World Expolympics Awards 2025. London-based AV consultancy and specialists in Immersive entertainment, Raven AV, became involved in the Saudi Arabia pavilion project through production company, Done+Dusted. Equipped with SP Grid, the Raven AV team were ready to implement a unique, interactive visitor experience at the pavilion.

THE CONCEPT
“We were tasked with helping bring to life the music of Saudi Arabian DJ and electronic music producer, COSMICAT,” explains Dan Roncoroni at Raven AV. “Interaction with the audience was a key requirement, so we began to develop the idea of a laser harp that would play parts of COSMICAT’s music when touched by visitors to the pavilion.” To create the theremin-style laser harp, Raven AV collaborated closely with COSMICAT to build an installation that could transcend language and cultural barriers. A series of vertical beams of light creates a virtual harp, with LiDAR sensors positioned behind each light to trigger audio and Lighting effects when interaction is detected. The sound system, which utilises d&b audiotechnik’s Soundscape, envelops visitors in an immersive audio experience.

SP GRID: THE SOLUTION
“When we first received the brief for the virtual harp installation, we settled on SP Grid as our preferred tool,” says Roncoroni. “At this early stage, we didn’t know how many different elements we’d need to control, but we knew the flexibility of the SP Grid platform would serve us no matter what direction the project went in.” 

The final workflow brought together a range of interconnected devices within the SP Grid user interface. Each vertical light beam was paired with a LiDAR sensor that detected hand movements, triggering both a change in light colour and playback of audio samples, whilst ambient layers of COSMICAT’s music played continuously, creating a blend between live audience interaction and atmospheric sound.

“Everything ran through SP Grid,” continues Roncoroni. “It was taking in the LiDAR data, mapping it to the lighting beams, and outputting Art-Net control to the LEDs and audio cues in Soundscape. It did all the heavy lifting for us.”

GAME-CHANGING FEATURES
The team took full advantage of SP Grid’s Grid Studio features during development, completing most of the programming for the project before even arriving in Japan. Grid Studio is free for prototyping and sandboxing, giving Raven AV a playground for experimentation before deployment. “We could emulate the LiDAR and lighting data, test the logic and even show the concept to the client without needing to hook up a single piece of hardware,” says Roncoroni. “That ability to visualise and tweak the system before deployment saved a huge amount of time and helped to give everyone involved confidence in the design.” When installation began in Osaka, the system came together with minimal setup.

The ease of collaboration was another plus. “We could just send a copy of the show file to our show designer, and he could open it and understand the system without needing to be a programmer,” confirms Roncoroni. “That level of accessibility makes SP Grid a great tool for creative teams.”

For Raven AV, the Osaka Expo 2025 project marked their first professional deployment of SP Grid, a successful debut that has left a strong impression and showcased the potential of the platform, even for short-term, one-off installations such as Expo. “The SP Grid pricing model, which scales with project complexity, was a pleasant surprise. For smaller installations like this, SP Grid is a very affordable yet powerful option.”

A showpiece installation that perfectly aligned with Expo 2025’s theme of human centred innovation, the visual harp represented an exciting, interactive fusion of art, technology and culture that successfully captured the imaginations of visitors to the Saudi Arabia pavilion. The ease of deployment, flexibility & accessibility of SP Grid proved to be a valuable tool for helping to bring this vision to life. “With SP Grid, we can focus on designing the experience rather than worrying about control protocols or data handling,” confirms Roncoroni. “It’s become one of those tools that just fits, and it lets us spend more time being creative, which is exactly what you want on a project like this.”