Simulation Cases in the Spring Festival Gala

On New Year’s Eve, you sit with your family watching the Spring Festival Gala.

Martial arts performers share the stage with robots,

Actors move through virtual-real fusion.

You marvel at the splendor of the stage, unaware that

These four dazzling hours before your eyes

Have already been rehearsed tens of thousands of times inside a computer.

From the thunderous sound of thousands of horses galloping, to the precise push and pull of the camera;

From a robot performing a somersault from three meters in the air, to the real-time rippling of water patterns on the stage—

Behind the Spring Festival Gala lies an entire massive simulation system.

Like invisible digital dream-weavers,

It uses zeros and ones to weave this Eastern dreamscape.

I. Stage Simulation: “Digital Twin”

At the 2024 Xinjiang Kashgar sub-venue, digital twin technology solved the filming challenges posed by extreme cold and a short window period. By 2026, this system had evolved from a customized tool into a creative engine. The China Media Group’s self-developed CMG Media Large Model 2.0 was deployed in full for the first time in Spring Festival Gala production, capable of simulating camera movements, constructing scenes, and rendering images in real time, allowing the physical stage to break through the constraints of time and space.

In the opening performance “Horses Bring Miracles”, the main scene of “Galloping Steeds” through which the actors move, as well as the “Ruyi” stage movement line that runs throughout the entire show, were all constructed and rendered in real time by the large model. The motion trajectories of the stage modules at the main venue and the four sub-venues—Harbin, Yiwu, Hefei, and Yibin—underwent tens of thousands of simulation calculations, achieving precise rhythm within mechanical motion.

Even in the song-and-creative show “Ode to the Flower Goddess”, the ancient and modern flower-goddess scenes in which the actors performed relied on this system to break through the limitations of the physical stage, enabling ever-changing switches between the virtual and the real.

The core goal has always remained the same: leave trial and error to the digital world, and deliver certainty to New Year’s Eve.

II. Sound Field Simulation: Creating the Sound of Thousands of Horses Galloping

For the Year of the Horse Spring Festival Gala, the chief director wanted the audience both at the venue and in front of their screens to truly hear the sound of thousands of horses galloping. This sense of impact reached its peak in the song “The Galloping Sea Li Horse”—the singer’s vocals were paired with a performance by Inner Mongolia’s Ulan Muqir Troupe. The sound of horse hooves did not come from a single speaker, but from a 360-degree matrix multi-channel sound field composed of 120 immersive effect speakers. Using three-dimensional sound field simulation and modeling, the auditory experience at every seat was precisely calculated.

Object-based sound design and scene-based mixing created a stark contrast between the majestic power of “The Galloping Sea Li Horse” and the delicate subtlety of the dance “Joyful Rain”. In the dance “Joyful Rain”, led by a principal dancer, the sounds of drizzling spring rain and babbling flowing water were precisely positioned through sound field simulation. Combined with China Media Group’s Audio Vivid technology, this allowed all-media audiences to experience the layered sense of “moistening things silently and softly”.

III. Camera Simulation: Unlocking “Impossible Shots”

The 2026 Spring Festival Gala set up eight virtual channels—the signals from these eight cameras did not come from physical lenses, but from virtual camera positions rendered in real time. Together with two physical telephoto camera positions behind the main stage screen, they jointly completed a camera language that integrated the virtual and the real.

These technologies shone in multiple programs. In the martial arts performance “Wǔ BOT”, the moment when the Yushu robot executed a three-meter spring somersault and a 720-degree spin relied on perspective synthesis simulation. Through multi-camera acquisition, the three-dimensional scene was reconstructed in real time, allowing cameras to be freely positioned in virtual space to capture aerial close-ups and slow-motion shots that were impossible to achieve with physical camera positions.

At the Yiwu sub-venue in Zhejiang Province, in the program “World Yiwu, Chinese New Year”, the surround shots of actors crossing the ancient and modern Silk Road while singing, as well as the seamless switching between Huangmei Opera and science-and-innovation scenes at the Hefei sub-venue in Anhui Province in “Harmony Fills Jianghuai”, were all achievements of camera simulation breaking through physical limits.

IV. Architectural Simulation: Bringing Ancient Architecture to Life on Stage

Continuing the creative approach of digital ancient architecture from the 2025 Spring Festival Gala program “Pillars”, the 2026 Spring Festival Gala further employed XR (Extended Reality), digital twin, and Virtual Production (VP) systems to bring traditional architecture to the stage in hyper-realistic form.

In 2025, the Spring Festival Gala program “Pillars” made a stunning debut, showcasing the essence of ancient architecture. In the opera performance “Spring Radiance Fills the Pear Garden”, when artists such as Zhang Youlin and Meng Guanglu performed, the traditional opera stage and silhouettes of Huizhou-style architecture in the background were based on hand-drawn materials, with high-precision 3D models constructed using digital twin technology.

The system combined ray tracing with physics engine simulation to calculate in real time the light-and-shadow interaction between stage lighting and virtual architecture, ensuring that the curvature of the bracket sets (dougong) and the patterns of painted decorations under the lighting fully conformed to real physical laws.

At the Hefei sub-venue in Anhui Province, in the program “Harmony Fills Jianghuai”, the virtual-real fusion of Huizhou architecture with science-and-innovation landmarks such as the Quantum Center exemplified the combination of architectural simulation and regional culture, making traditional culture “accessible, interactive, and performable”.

V. Motion Simulation: Robots Are No Longer Backup Dancers

In 2025, the program “Yāng BOT” brought robot Yangge dance into the spotlight; by 2026, robots completed the leap from “backup dancers” to “lead performers,” with products from four major domestic embodied intelligence companies making in-depth appearances across different programs.

- Martial Arts “Wǔ BOT”: Robots from Yushu Technology shared the stage with youths from Henan Tagou Wushu School, completing high-difficulty moves such as continuous fancy table-flipping parkour, a 720-degree spin from three meters in the air, and one-foot somersaults. They could also engage in precise stick-fighting sparring with human performers and perform Drunken Boxing. Behind this was real-time dynamics simulation and multi-agent collaborative simulation, allowing multiple robots to move in high-speed coordinated clusters with a synchronization error of less than 0.1 seconds.

- Sketch “Grandma’s Favorite”: Songyan Power’s bionic robot “Xiao Bumi” engaged in multiple rounds of natural dialogue with comedians, becoming the first robot actor in a language-based program capable of “catching punchlines and showing empathy”.

- Song “Intelligent Creation of the Future”: Magic Atom robots served as backup dancers for the singers, achieving precise formation changes and movement synchronization.

- New Year’s Micro-Film “My Most Unforgettable Tonight”: Galaxy General robots performed alongside comedians, demonstrating natural interaction and facial expression coordination.

These breakthroughs stem from real-time dynamics simulation, multi-agent collaborative simulation, and laser SLAM positioning technology, transforming robots from “pre-programmed instruction executors” into “intelligent performers capable of sensing their environment and making autonomous decisions”.

VI. Scene Simulation: Constructing an Eastern Fantasy

The water ripples, auspicious clouds, auroras, ice, and snow on the stage all came from real-time fluid simulation, particle simulation, and smoke simulation. The computer generated every frame of natural dynamics through millions of calculations solving physical equations, and these effects were linked in real time with the performers’ motion capture.

In the dance “Joyful Rain”, the layers of water ripples that spread as the dancers’ toes swept across the stage were the result of real-time interaction between fluid simulation and motion capture. In the song-and-creative show “Ode to the Flower Goddess”, the auspicious cloud light particles surrounding the performers achieved a delicate floating effect through particle simulation.

The scene simulations at the four sub-venues each had their own distinctive features:

- Harbin Sub-Venue “Ice and Snow Warm the World”: AR aurora effects complemented the physical ice-carved turrets, and the smoke simulation of the ice-and-snow fantasy world made the stage resemble a fairy-tale realm.

- Yiwu Sub-Venue “World Yiwu, Chinese New Year”: XR technology recreated the Silk Road, with intangible cultural heritage elements such as rattan drums and dragon lanterns seamlessly switching with commercial scenes.

- Hefei Sub-Venue “Harmony Fills Jianghuai”: A drone formation simulated particle collision trajectories, echoing the city’s identity as a hub of science and technology.

- Yibin Sub-Venue “Standing at the Upstream”: The waves of the Yangtze River were transformed into the patterns of a wine jar through fluid simulation, perfectly integrated with Li Ziqi’s intangible cultural heritage performance and Dilraba’s dance.

Every visual spectacle was a precise narrative woven from simulation technology and regional culture.

VII. The Warmest “Simulation”

Among all the hardcore technologies, the gentlest one is found in the simultaneous broadcast on China Central Television’s Music Channel (CCTV-15). In 2026, the barrier-free version of the Spring Festival Gala appeared on television big screens for the first time, having moved from mobile phone small screens. Presented in a vertical-screen format featuring “live images + intelligent simultaneous subtitles + large-format sign language”, it achieved full program coverage across China Central Television News.

This warmth is embodied in every detail:

- When hearing-impaired audiences watch “Hands Bring Blessings”, sign language performers in AR virtual scenes follow the singer’s vocal rhythm, using hand gestures to interpret the artistic conception of “blessings” and “reunion”, and even mimicking the posture of playing musical instruments during the instrumental interlude.

- When visually impaired audiences listen to “Resonance in the World”, the carefully choreographed audio commentary precisely describes the singer’s performance state, the changes in stage lighting and shadow, and the emotional core behind the song.

This is not merely a technological simulation involving AR scene reuse and AI subtitle generation; it is also a humanistic simulation in which sign language performers and commentators use their bodies and voices to fully “re-perform” the Spring Festival Gala for the 17 million visually impaired and 45 million hearing-impaired individuals. Technology bridges distances, ensuring that reunion has no shortcomings.

Thousands of Horses Galloping Begins with a Single Line of Code

From the stage pre-visualization of “Horses Bring Miracles” to the motion simulation of “Wǔ BOT”, from the digital twin of ancient architecture in “Spring Radiance Fills the Pear Garden” to the barrier-free broadcast of “Unforgettable Tonight”—the simulation technologies of the Spring Festival Gala are no longer merely auxiliary tools.

They are prophets for the realization of creative ideas,

conductors of stage coordination,

translators for the revitalization of traditional culture,

and, above all, a concentrated review of China’s core capabilities in independent simulation, digital twins, and artificial intelligence.

Everything can be simulated.

Next time, when you marvel at a particular moment of the Spring Festival Gala, you might well remember those digital dream-weavers working behind the scenes. With line after line of code, they have woven for you, in front of the screen, this dream of thousands of horses galloping.