Christmas Projection Mapping for Facade Shows and Tree Lightings

Snow starts falling on a building that has never seen snow. A sleigh crosses the facade, the windows fill with dancing gingerbread men and the whole square counts down to the moment the lights come on. That is the kind of evening people plan their holiday around.

We design and build Christmas shows for resorts, shopping districts, cities and brands, from the animation to the projection setup. If you are planning a holiday season, tell us about the venue and the crowd you expect.

Projection mapping can animate entire buildings with falling snow, glowing ornaments or a countdown that turns into fireworks. A holiday show might use warm, nostalgic imagery such as crackling fireplaces, twinkling stars or a sleigh ride across a facade. Because the content is designed to fit the architecture, a row of windows can become an advent calendar and a clock face can become a wreath.

Outdoor conditions are an important part of planning a Christmas show. Outdoor shows need weatherproof projectors or enclosures, plus enough brightness to compete with streetlights and moonlight. Rain or snow can reduce brightness slightly, so we adjust content contrast to keep the picture vivid in ambient city lights.

• Animation drawn for your building. Our in-house creative team develops festive characters, snowfall and seasonal patterns, then maps them to the facade. Santa can appear to dance across the building, just as he did in our Venetian holiday show.
• Shows timed to music. Content can be arranged to go with each song and timed to live music, so the visuals follow the performance.
• Push-button running. With processing completed in advance on a custom media server, a nightly show can start at the press of a button.
• Interactive snow. Our team develops animations in-house, such as drifting snowflakes that track hand movements, for interactive displays where guests can play.
• Branded moments. We can integrate your logos, sponsor messages or product visuals into the experience, such as a branded snowflake transition.
• Cold-weather rigs. Projector enclosures, brightness and contrast are planned around the conditions at the site.

Facade shows are the classic Christmas format: one building, a short show on repeat through the evening, and a crowd that gathers to watch it from the start.

Tree lightings set the season off. A tree lighting needs to feel epic, yet intimate enough to connect with thousands of people at once. Projection on nearby buildings can build anticipation before the tree lights come on.

Holiday walk-throughs and domes give visitors a reason to stay longer. Holiday shows can run for weeks or multiple nights, and a dome allows modular sequences, such as a 10-minute winter wonderland loop, without rebuilding the stage. Domes have also become a centerpiece of holiday markets, drawing repeat visitors who want to experience the immersive loop again.

Halloween shows have their own page, citywide light trails sit on our light festivals page, and Chanukah and other faith celebrations belong on our religious and cultural events page.

• The Venetian Holiday Show: With BESTAgency, we created a Christmas projection show for Streetmosphere at the Grand Canal Shoppes inside The Venetian Resort, kicking off the 2021 holiday season. The St. Marks Clock Tower came alive with the 12 Days of Christmas, snowflakes, twinkling lights and Santa Claus, timed to live music from a pop opera group with two violinists and two guitarists. During "Jingle Bells", gingerbread men danced in the tower's windows. The content was processed in advance, so the 17-minute show ran at the press of a button on a 32K-lumen 4K Christie Boxer projector and our custom media server.
• Resorts World rooftop domes: With Cornerstone Collective, Moët Hennessy and Zouk Group, we installed six 13-foot geodesic domes that turned the Rose Rooftop at Resorts World Las Vegas into a winter wonderland for the Veuve Clicquot winter experience.

Tell us about the building or space, the dates of your season, how many nights the show will run and the music you have in mind. We will come back with the story, the content and the rig we would build for it. For the wider range of surfaces we map, see our projection mapping services, or contact our team to start.