13 September 2026

When the Avatar Walked Onstage: Veeam On Tour South Africa 2026

An early morning safari. A digital guide. A landscape with a few surprises hiding in it.

Then came the surprise nobody was expecting: the avatar walked onto the stage as a real person.

The audience erupted into spontaneous applause.

Working with event organisers Fiz Marketing, Brand Avatar created an opening that brought Veeam On Tour South Africa 2026’s technology theme to life, with a distinctly South African twist.

Welcome to the digital safari

The brief centred on agentic AI and its implications for data storage, security and resilience. Our challenge was to turn that complex subject into an experience the audience could connect with.

So we took them on safari.

At dawn, an avatar guide led the audience through a digital landscape, highlighting hazards along the way. Some dangers were visible; others needed a closer look. The journey introduced visibility, understanding and trust through a familiar South African setting.

Everything led towards one thought: the impact of the digital world has to land in the real one.

From script to safari

We started with scripting and a mood board, establishing the story, visual atmosphere and the moment where the digital guide would become a real presence.

Next came storyboards, mapping the journey and its key visual moments. These became the blueprint for building the safari landscape in Unreal Engine.

To create the guide, we scanned the performer’s face and photographed the costume. Those references were used to model a digital double, connecting the character on screen with the person who would eventually step onto the stage.

AI helped us create digital effects and graphics, which were overlaid into the landscape to support the story.

The landscape background was pre-rendered. For the live show, we combined a live performer, motion capture and Unreal Engine to animate the digital double in real time, compositing the avatar over that background.

This brought the carefully planned visual world together with a live performance, giving the guide a human presence from the start.

Now for the human bit

At the pivotal moment, the performer appeared on stage in matching costume and continued the presentation.

Same character. Same story. Suddenly sharing the room.

The entrance completed the journey, making the connection between digital innovation and human impact tangible. The spontaneous applause was the audience’s immediate response to that transformation.

A strong story, built together

Scripting gave the visuals, performance and reveal a shared purpose. It also reflects Fiz Marketing’s feedback across several projects with Brand Avatar:

“Steven adds real value, especially in scripting.”

Their testimonial praises his writing for giving projects a strong foundation, celebrates the unique experiences created together and describes the team as a pleasure to work with.

For us, this project captured what Brand Avatar is here to do: humanise brands.

The safari gave a complex theme a setting. The digital double gave it personality. The live performer brought it into the audience’s world.

A digital journey, with a very human destination.