Novarama Back to the Future — Novarama

Novarama

Novarama Back to the Future

Brand Event · Roc 35, Barcelona · 2023

Brand event for Novarama studio at Roc 35, Barcelona. Back to the Future narrative concept with cinematic eighties aesthetics for the video game studio's annual corporate celebration.

  • Novarama Back to the Future event in Barcelona — Bacus Events production
  • Novarama Back to the Future event in Barcelona — Bacus Events production
  • Novarama Back to the Future event in Barcelona — Bacus Events production
  • Novarama Back to the Future event in Barcelona — Bacus Events production
  • Novarama Back to the Future event in Barcelona — Bacus Events production
  • Novarama Back to the Future event in Barcelona — Bacus Events production
  • Novarama Back to the Future event in Barcelona — Bacus Events production
  • Novarama Back to the Future event in Barcelona — Bacus Events production
  • Novarama Back to the Future event in Barcelona — Bacus Events production
  • Novarama Back to the Future event in Barcelona — Bacus Events production
  • Novarama Back to the Future event in Barcelona — Bacus Events production

The challenge

A video game launch does not hold up with a photocall and a cocktail.

The standard corporate presentation format did not work here. A room with a frontal stage, screen, and lectern places the attendee in a passive position. It works for financial results. It fails in an industry where the product is experience and where guests are trained to detect lukewarm production on sight.

The challenge had three layers. The first was narrative: the studio wanted to connect its track record with the present moment without turning the night into a corporate history lesson. The second was technical: the chosen creative concept — an aesthetic tribute to the 1980s and that decade's science fiction — demanded building a coherent world, not scattering isolated references. The third was audience: journalists, developers, publisher executives, and institutional partners share the same room, each with a different attention threshold and different reasons for being there.

The production had to resolve all three layers simultaneously, without any one of them cannibalising the others.

Bacus's response

A time travel experience built as a production piece, not as set dressing.

Bacus started from a very concrete premise. If the concept is 'back to the future', the evening has to function as a credible time machine. Neon-coloured lights and a couple of posters are not enough. The attendee needs to cross a threshold and enter a different decade from the first minute.

Production is organised in chronological layers. A welcome zone with early-1980s visual coding. A central zone where nostalgia and the presentation of the new project coexist. And a final zone that returns the attendee to the present moment of the studio, with the product now on the table.

The team treats the scenography as a small film. Real neon lighting, not projected colour. Period props selected by an art direction team. Original music in each zone, with carefully managed transitions so the guest notices the shift without having it explained. Route signage is integrated within the design itself, with no visible operational signs.

The staging of the key presentation moment is built as a complete audiovisual scene: video, dynamic lighting, voice-over, and the Novarama team's entrance coordinated on the same timecode. The attendee does not see a corporate event. They see a scene.

The experience

The guest enters a party and discovers, inside it, a presentation.

The attendee's journey is not announced. It is discovered. The entrance functions as a door to another era, with its own cast and a hospitality team dressed within the code. From there, the guest moves through the evening without a visible programme and without a master of ceremonies indicating when to applaud.

The moment of presenting the new project is inserted within the journey, not on top of it. Attendees are already inside the built world when the act begins, and that act is staged as one more scene of the evening — not as a corporate intermission.

The networking section is distributed across the various scenic zones. Journalists have a recognisable space from which to access the product team. Investors have more reserved areas within the same visual code. Technical partners move freely through the more informal areas. Nobody feels they are at a different event.

The result

A night the sector recognises and the studio can capitalise on afterwards.

The project meets the double objective of the brief. The new title's presentation appears in specialist video game media with focus on the product, not the party. And the visual code of the event is associated from the first moment with the positioning the studio wanted to reinforce.

Novarama gains quality audiovisual material for subsequent use in corporate and talent communications. Bacus adds a case where scenography, lighting, and art direction work at the same level as the corporate presentation they host.

Client
Novarama
Attendees
90
Venue
Roc 35, Barcelona

Frequently asked questions · Novarama Back to the Future

What readers ask after this case.

  • The event has to be treated as a product, not as a communications support. That means working the scenography with its own art direction, integrating the presentation within a journey rather than on top of it, and lighting with physical material when the concept demands it. It also requires segmenting the real audience of the video game sector: press, developers, publishers, and investors share the same room with different motivations. The production has to give each their space without breaking the visual unity of the whole. And it must deliver reusable audiovisual material afterwards for corporate communications and talent acquisition.

  • Physical neon behaves as a real light source within the room. Its reflections on glass, furniture, and skin are consistent and do not depend on the camera angle. Colour projection onto white surfaces reads well in overhead photography but loses credibility as the guest moves through the space. For a concept that called for 1980s authenticity — not 1980s decoration — the technical decision was almost obligatory. The rental cost of neon tubes and specific signage is offset by final audiovisual material that holds up from any angle and by an experience the attendee remembers as a world, not as a filter.

  • By journey zones and hospitality intensity, not by signs. The production designs areas with distinct lighting codes, furniture, and noise levels — all within the same visual narrative. Journalists access an area with press materials and product team availability. Investors have more reserved areas with longer conversation windows. Technical partners circulate through more informal areas. The attendee never sees a sign telling them where to be, but the design naturally indicates which zone suits them best. It is a floor plan exercise, not visible logistics.

  • The pure corporate act should occupy a small fraction of the total. As an operational reference, in long-evening formats the product presentation block typically sits between fifteen and twenty-five minutes, integrated within a total journey of three to four hours. The important factor is not the duration but where it falls within the attendee's attention curve. Too early and attendees are not yet inside the built world. Too late and part of the audience has shifted into networking mode and disengages. Bacus typically places the presentation in the advanced first third of the evening — with the audience already inside the scenography and energy still high.

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