A kind of magic: How one of Freddie Mercury’s final ever Queen shows is being re-imagined as a new live ‘gig’ experience
We sit down for a chat with the team behind Queen Budapest: The Concert Film Experience, headed to London’s Roundhouse.
Watching a concert film in the cinema is all very well, but there's one obvious problem: you're generally expected to sit down and keep quiet. That, however, won't be an issue when Queen Budapest rocks London's Roundhouse this October.
The legendary 1986 Queen concert film is being transformed into a full-on gig experience for one day only, with the Roundhouse hosting a show where fans can stand, dance, sing along and generally behave as though Freddie Mercury and the band are actually on stage in front of them.
Taking place on Saturday 3rd October 2026, with afternoon and evening performances, the ‘is-it-a-gig?’ event comes just before the new Queen Budapest concert film, remastered by Peter Jackson, gets its worldwide cinema and IMAX release on 7th October.
So what sets this apart from just popping some vintage live Queen on YouTube? We sat down with the team behind the event to find.
One vision (with some AC/DC inspiration)
Queen Budapest: The Concert Film Experience is a fresh take on the live gig experience from the production team at Playback Live, who had a eureka moment whilst working with another rock-royalty group — AC/DC.
“We'd been working with Sony on AC/DC when they were on tour in Europe and the States last year and the year before, and we were doing pop-up fan zones for them,” explains Caroline Lockyer Nibs, CEO of Playback Live.
“We had a large screen where we were playing footage from concerts, and it was just interesting to watch all the fans who were coming — basically initially to buy merch, if we're honest — spending time in front of the screens, and having that shared experience. We were getting approximately 5,000 people a day across all of those sites, so it was a big volume of people who were engaging with the screens and the concert and the footage. So we thought there's got to be something in this.”
“We created these beautiful places for fans to sit and chill out, and all they wanted to do is stand at these screens and just sing their hearts out and dance around together!” adds Rebecca Margariti-Smith, Production and Operations Director at Playback Live.
“Everyone's seen so many of the music biopics now, or Taylor Swift's era's tour in the cinemas. But we've always felt personally that it's a bit of a square peg / round hole situation where, sure, it brings fans the opportunity to connect more with the bands and with the artists they love, but films are very much more of an individual experience. No-one wants any talking during a film in a standard cinema.”
Rather than sitting in a cinema watching a concert on a conventional screen then, the Roundhouse will turn its main space into something much closer to a Queen gig.
The restored concert will be projected onto a giant LED screen, accompanied by full surround sound and synchronised concert lighting. The idea is to recreate some of the scale and atmosphere of being in the crowd at a Queen show, rather than simply watching one.
“The bigger concept of Queen Budapest is that it takes that cinema screening problem and just provides the solution,” says Margariti-Smith, “because, at the end of the day, you're reliving the experience, but in a professional live music setting — big surround sound, and lighting that cinemas just can't do.”
And yes, you're actually allowed to get out of your seat. The organisers say fans can move, dance and sing throughout the screening – so if you've ever found yourself wanting to belt out We Are The Champions beyond a karaoke booth or a football terrace, here’s your chance.
Days of our lives
The footage comes from Queen's legendary 27th July 1986 concert at Budapest's Népstadion, performed during the band's enormous Magic Tour.
Around 80,000 people packed into the stadium to see the band, making the show a landmark moment: Queen became the first Western stadium rock band to perform behind the Iron Curtain.
It also has an added poignancy for Queen fans: This was the band's final filmed live performance, captured just three years before Freddie Mercury's death in 1991. It therefore offers a remarkable document of Queen at the height of its stadium-rock powers – with Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon performing together.
The setlist is suitably stacked, a greatest hits show including We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, A Kind of Magic, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Under Pressure, Who Wants To Live Forever, Hammer To Fall and Bohemian Rhapsody — all primed for mass-singalong potential at the Roundhouse.
The team are more than aware of the reverential love for the gig that fans have, and are striving to do it justice in the production — not just for the fans, but for the surviving band members, too.
“We want to do it to a high quality, that's important, and that is signed off by the band themselves,” says Margariti-Smith.
“The only reason they were doing it is because Sony went to Brian May and Roger Taylor. They were both really excited by it, which is great. And obviously, as soon as we heard that and learnt that they'd given their nod, we were like, right, we're onto something here.”
It’s an important show for Sony too — it spent $1 billion in securing the rights to the Queen back catalogue, and while the remaining members still tour (with Adam Lambert now in front of the mic), that purchase will only pay for itself over decades, not years. As the band grows older, events like Playback Live’s show will give fresh generations of fans reason to splash the cash on Queen’s music for years to come.
A magic makeover
If you've seen Queen Budapest before, this isn't simply a re-release with a new poster. The original 35mm footage has been restored and rescanned in 4K by Peter Jackson's Park Road Post Production facility (the team that worked wonders on all that archive footage of The Beatles for Disney), while the original multitrack recordings have been given newly remixed audio.
The production team are taking full advantage of the technical wizardry at the heart of the remaster.
“We've got the main audio production team that were involved in Peter Jackson’s remastering,” explains Margariti-Smith.
“We’re working really carefully together, collaborating. They’re very much a post-production film, audio, and visual team. But then we're coming at it as a live events team. This is our bread and butter. This is what we know, and we have our experts, from audio designers to lighting designers that work in the live space. They're top of their game, doing shows across the West End.”
The Roundhouse venue in Camden, North London
As well as live lighting to mimic a concert experience and 360-degree sound, the show will also benefit from a live-on-the-night mix, tuned to match the atmosphere in the venue.
“We've really gotten into the weeds of how the original '86 recording was made, what stems were there, what's then delivered in the film, how we can then take it as a live event, as if they were the band on the stage,” says Margariti-Smith.
“We've got our audio front of house engineer who'll be doing that live mix, and that comes in play as well with the 5.1 surround sound.
“This is the first time that we’ve been able to get stems, which are almost like the audio files of a film, as separate files. That's not just pre-delivered as part of the reel like in the cinemas. We can adjust [the mix], temper it in a live space — when you're hearing the audience track on the film, we can adjust that in the main space because we've got real audience participation, too.”
From Budapest to the Roundhouse
There'll also be an 80s DJ set before the film, while original Queen memorabilia from the band's archive will be displayed around the venue. Photo opportunities, bars and an exclusive Queen Budapest merchandise pop-up complete the line-up — but the glorious Roundhouse venue itself, with its circular shape and skeletal interior leftovers from its former days as railway turntable, will be just as key to shaping the atmosphere on the night.
“It's a great, iconic music venue, which is what we wanted,” says Lockyer Nibs. “That was really important for the idea, that we went to somewhere that was known as a gig space. And it's a good capacity number as well for this kind of event, as it's not too big.”
Fancy belting out Radio Ga-Ga in the heart of Camden? Tickets are available for two performances on Saturday 3rd October 2026, with the matinee opening at 2pm, and the evening performance opening at 7pm.
And there's a nice bit of timing to it all: the Roundhouse event comes just weeks after what would have been Freddie Mercury's 80th birthday, making the screening something of a celebration of the singer's enduring legacy as well as Queen's extraordinary live career.
“To be up on level two during Bohemian Rhapsody, and just looking down on the audience and their engagement, I think I’m going to cry,” smiles Lockyer Nibs.
Hankies at the ready all round then.
Tickets for the Roundhouse performances are available now.
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