In November 2016, Lucassen announced the first ever official Ayreon concerts for September 2017, entitled "Ayreon Universe". The show featured 16 singers and 11 instrumentalists, all of which had previously worked together with Lucassen on his studio albums. Unlike "The Theater Equation", it consisted of unrelated songs from Ayreon performed after each other as in a traditional concert, with a few songs from Star One featured as well. One of the performances was released as a live album/DVD on March 30, 2018, titled "Ayreon Universe – The Best of Ayreon Live".