Light Up Louisville

The brief

Joey Wagner Group came to Backbeat looking for projection-mapping — they knew our reputation. The ask wasn’t a creative direction; it was a venue and a void: ten minutes of projection on a downtown Louisville building, replacing the fireworks show that had anchored the city’s holiday kickoff for years.

The constraint that mattered most wasn’t creative. It was the fireworks-replacement framing. The mayor, the city, and JWG were trusting us to deliver something the public would respond to without the safety net of a finale they already knew worked. And it was projection-mapping in winter — tech that’s finicky in good weather, more so when cold and snow are on the table.

Approach

The team was small. Three 2D animators (two in-house at Backbeat, one outside the studio), two 3D animators, an illustrator, and a music producer composing an original score. All from our freelance network.

The creative direction landed on a braid of city identity — horse racing, bourbon, Slugger Field, the fleur-de-lis — and holiday. In year one, a Ford sponsorship became Santa driving a red F-150. Chris and I built the show around the must-haves Mayor Greenberg and JWG had flagged (horse racing and bourbon) and shaped everything else around those anchors.

On the technical side: six projectors overlapping, both for maximum brightness and for failover, with an AV partner running the rig. Year one, an enclosure failed during the show. The overlap meant no one noticed. Year two, the partner had learned — more enclosure testing in pre-production, cleaner blending across projectors, no failures.

Year-one mapping was handled by a freelancer doing the slicing with Chris and me advising. Year two, we trimmed the on-site team to two: Chris on the computer, me at the building calling adjustments. Faster, cleaner.

Before either year went live, we 3D-printed the building and ran a mini projection on the printed model — a preview show for JWG and city stakeholders before opening night. Built trust before we earned it for real.

Outcome

The year-one show landed extremely well. Local press picked it up before the event — I sat for a TV interview leading up to it — and the public response justified the fireworks-replacement bet.

Year two, the city’s notes shrunk to zero. No reviews, no revisions. The mandate was: do it again.

Year three (2026) is the expansion. We’re opening the creative pool — talks with local Louisville artists to contribute, and a university partnership under discussion to fold in student work. What started as a one-time fireworks replacement is becoming a creative platform the city builds around.

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Team: Alex Walk + Backbeat Motion + freelance network Year: 2024–2025, returning 2026