When Five Currents asked Studio Bound to help design Bob Marley: Hope Road, the brief was specific: create an immersive experience that lets people walk through Marley’s story rather than simply observe it. Not a museum. Not a concert. Something in between — 20,000 square feet across seven distinct themed environments at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas.

The scale was not the challenge. The challenge was creating spaces that feel intimate even when they’re massive — environments that work whether a solo visitor is moving at their own pace or a group is experiencing a live performance moment together. Production designer Patrick Larsen approached it the same way Studio Bound approaches every immersive experience: design for what people feel, not just what they see.

Seven Spaces, One Coherent Journey

The experience moves visitors through seven distinct environments, each representing a chapter in Marley’s life and legacy. The design started from one question: how do you build a space that speaks before anyone performs in it?

Each environment needed its own visual language. Projection mapping was used not as decoration but as architecture — surfaces that shift between realistic textures and abstract imagery depending on the narrative moment. The same physical space could read as a Kingston yard, a recording studio, or an open field, depending on content and light.

The Jamming Tree: One Element, Multiple Functions

The centrepiece is the Jamming Tree — a sculptural structure that serves simultaneously as physical architecture and projection surface. It needed to support intimate scenes, full ensemble performances, and narrative transitions. The same element had to read from close proximity and from across the space, and had to hold meaning in both contexts.

This is a core production design challenge in immersive work: creating elements with enough visual weight to anchor a space while remaining flexible enough to shift emotionally with the content. The Jamming Tree is the clearest example of that principle at work in Hope Road.

Colour as Storytelling Language

The colour progression through Hope Road tells the story as directly as any performed element. Warm golds represent Jamaica, home, and roots. Vibrant greens and reds carry energy, revolution, and movement. Cooler blues shift into introspection, legacy, and the global reach of Marley’s music.

Lighting design and projection content work in parallel throughout. These are not decorative choices — they are structural narrative tools. An audience moving between environments should understand the emotional register of each space before a single word is spoken or sung.

What Immersive Production Design Demands That Traditional Theater Does Not

Designing immersive experiences requires a fundamentally different production design approach from traditional theatrical work. Audiences move at their own pace. They look where they choose to look. Sightlines cannot be controlled the way they can from a fixed stage.

Studio Bound designed for peripheral vision as much as focal points — creating layers of detail that reward exploration and read differently on a second visit. The environment has to function whether someone spends two minutes or ten in a given space. Every corner has to be finished, because any angle might be someone’s primary view. Bob Marley: Hope Road opened at Mandalay Bay in 2025 as Studio Bound’s first music-focused immersive experience in Las Vegas.

Patrick Larsen is an Emmy Award-winning production designer and the founder of Studio Bound, based in Singapore. Over two decades, he has designed environments for global audiences — from the Expo 2020 Dubai ceremonies and Olympic broadcast sets to Las Vegas residencies, Broadway-scale theatrical productions, and permanent installations across Asia and the Middle East. Studio Bound takes projects from concept to build with one fully integrated team of designers, concept artists, technical drafters, and production managers. Read more at patricklarsen.studio or visit studiobound.sg

Further reading: Designing Souk Wonders: Building an Arabian Marketplace as Immersive Theatre | Studio Bound: Five Projects That Define Production Design in 2025