Mark Fisher, a stage designer who helped shape the modern concert experience with the spectacles he created for Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, U2 and others, died Tuesday at age 66. His death in a London hospice was announced by the firm he co-founded, Stufish.

After attending architecture school in London in the mid-1960s, Fisher stumbled into the concert business with his creation of helium-filled figures that hovered over Pink Floyd's performances. Later, he helped bring that band's "The Wall" to life on tour, and he updated the concept for a 2010 "Wall" revival tour by Roger Waters. One of Fisher's most technical innovations was the spidery stage at the center of U2's most recent "360" tour.

In recent years Fisher expanded the scope of his "entertainment architecture" with contributions to opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing and London.

Fisher was pragmatic about his behind-the-scenes role in the rock world, yet he also maintained an ambitious view of what design could achieve in the concert experience. In a 2010 interview with the Wall Street Journal, he said, "The audience isn't rating my work as they would a vacuum cleaner; it's being rated in terms of pleasure."

"It has to do with the way that a rock show is sort of tribal event in our culture, and somebody like Bono is a sort of shaman." In that respect, Fisher added, his stage designs had to fulfill a critical function: "It's preparing everyone for the arrival of the high priest."