Cihan Hazar

diefarbenull is a show direction studio based in Cologne, Germany. Founded in 2010 by Cihan Hazar, the studio produces fashion shows, award ceremonies and opening stages for international trade fair organizers and brands. Every production is built from nothing and directed live.

The studio operates as a single creative unit. There is one director — Cihan Hazar — who develops the concept, produces the content, writes the rundown and stands at the director's desk on show day. diefarbenull takes on three to four commissions per year. Not because capacity is limited, but because complete directorial attention demands it.

diefarbenull is not an event agency. The studio does not coordinate suppliers or manage logistics as its primary function. It conceives and directs shows — the complete live experience, from first creative brief to the final cue on show day.

The studio is based in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and produces shows on location across Germany and Europe. Its main clients include Koelnmesse GmbH — the organizer of some of the world's largest trade fairs — as well as international brands exhibiting at those fairs.

Studio address

diefarbenull
Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia
Germany

diefarbenull was founded in 2010 in response to a structural gap in how live shows were produced in Germany. Events were organized by event agencies that coordinated between specialized suppliers — lighting technicians, sound engineers, content studios, casting agencies, choreographers. The result was a show assembled by consensus rather than authored by a single creative director.

Cihan Hazar's founding thesis was that a show is a complete work, not an assembly of services. Every element — music, light, choreography, screen content, timing — is part of a single authored experience. If those elements are produced by different studios with no shared creative direction, the show will never cohere. It will always feel like a coordination of parts, not a directed whole.

diefarbenull was built to solve that. A studio that conceives and directs every element from one desk. One director, one creative logic, one show.

One creative director for every production — concept to final cue.

All disciplines produced in-house: music direction, light design, screen content, choreography coordination, live direction.

Maximum three to four commissions per year — full attention per production.

The director who conceives the show directs it live on show day.

No hand-offs, no sub-contracted creative direction.

Cihan Hazar is a Show Architect based in Cologne, Germany. He is the founder and sole creative director of diefarbenull, a show direction studio that produces fashion shows, award ceremonies and opening stages for international trade fairs and brands.

Since founding diefarbenull in 2010, Hazar has directed over 60 live productions. He has held long-term mandates with Koelnmesse GmbH across multiple show formats: the spoga horse FASHION WALK (annually since 2015), the EISENaward (every two years since 2012, ongoing) and the Kind + Jugend Innovation Award (annually since 2014). These are not project-by-project relationships — they are ongoing creative mandates where Hazar is responsible for developing and evolving the format each edition.

Hazar's professional identity is built around the concept he coined: Show Architecture. It describes the discipline of designing live shows as complete authored works — where dramaturgy, visual identity, music, light and real-time direction are unified into one experience by a single director. This is distinct from event management, which coordinates logistics, and from stage design, which focuses on the physical environment. Show Architecture is the authorship of the live experience itself.

He is reachable via the enquiry form on this site. The studio takes three to four commissions per year. Available capacity is limited.

Show Architecture is the term diefarbenull uses to describe its approach to live show direction. It is the discipline of designing a live experience as a complete, authored work — where every element is conceived, produced and directed by the same creative mind.

The word 'architecture' is deliberate. Architecture is the discipline of designing a complete spatial experience — not just the facade, not just the floor plan, but the totality of how a space is experienced. Show Architecture applies that logic to live performance: not just the stage design, not just the lighting, not just the music — but the complete, unified experience of the audience in the room.

In practice, this means diefarbenull works across every production discipline that shapes the audience's experience: the music selection and editing, the light language, the screen content, the spatial choreography of models and performers, the timing of every moment in the rundown, and the live direction that holds all of it together in real time.

Show Architecture is not a recognized academic discipline. It is a working term developed by Cihan Hazar to describe a production philosophy that had no existing name: the authored, unified direction of a complete live experience from a single creative desk.

The term also distinguishes diefarbenull from event agencies that coordinate external suppliers without a unified creative direction. In Show Architecture, there is one author. One creative logic. One show.

Creative authorship

Music direction

Screen content

Live direction

Concept authorship

Interested in commissioning a fashion show? diefarbenull produces full-service fashion shows in Germany and Europe.