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Project Type
Architainment/Immersive Experience.
Large-scale architectural projection mapping installation for Freedom 250, the official celebration of America's 250th anniversary. LMG mapped all four sides of the 555-foot Washington Monument for the New Year's Eve kickoff, then returned for a six-night Fourth of July projection show with full audio on the National Mall.
Project Name
Freedom 250, Projection Mapping The Washington Monument
Design Criteria
Freedom 250 wanted the Washington Monument to become "America's tallest birthday candle," a national landmark turned storytelling canvas to open the country's 250th year. The brief was to project on all four sides of the monument at once, something that had never been done before, so the show could be seen from nearly anywhere in the city. For July, the goal grew: a narrated show of American history, from ships crossing the Atlantic to covered wagons to the Empire State Building, paired with a concert-grade sound system for crowds across the Mall. With the whole country watching, the system had to be completely redundant. There was no room for a dark side or a missed cue.
Project Description
For Freedom 250, the official celebration of America's 250th anniversary, LMG turned the Washington Monument into a four-sided projection canvas visible across Washington, D.C. On New Year's Eve, the 555-foot obelisk became "America's tallest birthday candle," kicking off the semiquincentennial year with imagery telling the nation's story on every face of the monument at once, a first for the landmark. Thousands gathered on the National Mall and millions watched online.
The success of that night brought LMG back for the official Fourth of July celebration. Over six nights, a narrated projection show designed by artist Kyle Barrett traced American history from ships crossing the Atlantic to covered wagons heading west to the Empire State Building, now paired with a full L-Acoustics sound system for live music, playback and a rally on the Mall. Across both events, LMG delivered projection, media playback and audio as a single system, turning one of the most recognizable structures in the world into a national stage for storytelling.
Challenges and Solutions
The monument is a 555-foot tapered obelisk, so every side needed its own geometry, throw distance and blend, with content landing cleanly on stone at a scale few teams have attempted. Our video systems director said he'd never done so much math for a single project. LMG solved it with four months of planning, decentralized control and full redundancy: primary and backup projectors on every side, housed in shipping containers around the monument, driven by eight separate playout computers so no single failure could take a face dark.
New Year's Eve brought 45 mph wind gusts, 32 degree temperatures and a 14 degree wind chill. The crew held alignment and kept the system running all night for thousands on the Mall and millions online.
Photo credits: Courtney Reed and Jerald Kerr
Equipment
Projection: 40 Barco 4K laser projectors (Barco UDX-4K40 and QDX-4K45), chosen for brightness and image clarity at a scale where ambient city light and distance work against you. Every side had primary and backup units for full redundancy.
Media: Ross Vertex media server ecosystem across eight decentralized playout computers, so each face of the monument could be controlled and protected independently.
Audio (July 4): L-Acoustics K Series main arrays with L Series delay extensions, KS28 and K1-SB subwoofers, designed and adjusted in Soundvision. L-Acoustics was chosen to take the July show's audio up a level for a combined program of playback, live music and a rally.
Team
LMG: Jayson Wise, Director of Video Systems; Patrick Verhey, LMG Systems Innovation; Robby Schlegel, Audio Systems Director
Creative and content: BARTKRESA studio (Bart Kresa); 900 lbs (Steve Deitz); Kyle Barrett, artist and videographer, July 4 show
Manufacturers: Barco, Ross Video, L-Acoustics
Client: Freedom 250