Saks Fifth Avenue Light Show 2025

This article was originally posted by by PLSN and can be found here.

Each evening through the holiday season, the Saks flagship store transforms into a dazzling show of synchronized lights, video, and music across the street from the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Visitors from around the world gather to watch the illuminated façade, which repeats from 5 to 11p.m. through early January. Having worked on the show first in 2004, right out of college, Production Designer Chris Werner, Principal of the Lunar Telephone Company, has been back designing the show each year since 2015, for his client American Christmas. He took PLSN behind the scenes to give us insight into this year's much-expanded dazzling holiday display, which was supported by systems integration specialists 4Wall Entertainment.

This year the design process was a joint effort of Lunar Telephone Co. along with American Christmas, and Saks. The design team started looking at angular things first, morphing into curvilinear ideas, before settling on diamonds. "Ultimately, we came back to diamond shapes," says Werner. "Unbeknownst to me there was a DeBeers diamonds partnership coming together and the Saks team had chosen Rihanna's song 'Diamonds' as a part of the arrangement, so it was all sort of kismet when we eventually got to this design."

Werner had been working toward an infinity mirror idea, possibly with electrostatic glass, "the material that frosts when it's got power," comments Werner. "We did some mockups at 4Wall to explore these options, but they were getting out of our budget range. We landed on the idea of these giant infinity mirrors being the focal points. There are eight diamonds in two different sizes. The large ones are 34' tall. It is an infinity mirror with two-way mirror on the front, standard mirror on the back with LED product in between. We try to stack the effects so we can outline, glow, or have the infinity look. We then looked at different LED resolutions ultimately finding the sweet spot of definition versus cost. We had never before been able to cover the building, which has always been a goal of mine. Previously, we had lit scenery spread out over the façade, but our content was heavy in one place or another. I wanted to get the content all the way from the street to the ledge at the top and the whole width of the city block front. This year, we got there."

The 'mirror' is made up of a couple of products. "Most of the building uses Minleon's products," says Werner. "Their U.S. distributor calls them a 'Bullet,' which is a pixel on a string, every six inches. It looks like a Christmas light, but with a bigger node. That's populating the infinity mirror. On the face is Minleon's flexible neon product and then there's LED tape, from a company called Potato around the perimeter to give us the glowing edge of what we call the medallion. We also used Elation Pulsar Strobes behind the two-way mirror. They are bright on the street, but the mirror product cuts the output by 80%. The video content for the show is run on a PRG Mbox media server controlled by a grandMA3 console."

The big picture numbers are impressive: The Saks light show draws 346.2kW of power and uses 94,180 total LED Bullets for the logo, diamonds, roof panels, and tear drops; and there are 1.66 miles of LED neon product and 324m of LED pixel tape along with 134 Advatek LED control boxes and four miles of control cabling. There are control rooms are on the second and eighth floors.

The content for the show was created by Werner's team. It starts with Vectorworks for pixel placement and 3D objects. They add in the pixel data and move to Blender and "then we use Unreal Engine, the video game tool to make a 3D space," notes Werner. "That's our previz tool. We build server content in Unreal, which is mostly built with After Effects and Cinema 4D. So, when it's ready for the Mbox it also goes into Unreal that lets us look at content from any angle. We check all the sight lines. We invested in Unreal Engine this year to prepare for whatever the future may be. Like if we ever want to bring in projection or lasers, we could do a more accurate rendering."

A Team Effort

Some of the key collaborators for this project: AMA Sign & Electric fabricated the scenery, as well as managing the physical installation. 4Wall handled the power and control infrastructure as well as testing all the systems. JTEK provided critical show support, ensuring playback and tech systems are show-ready each night. Throughout it all, the project management was led by American Christmas, whose team navigates permits, coordination, safety, and schedules. They also install all the lights into the scenic elements.

4Wall Entertainment joined the Saks Fifth Ave. project in 2015 and have supported Werner and American Christmas teams ever since. "4Wall has been a fabulous partner," comments Werner. "I work closely with Brent Pritchett, [VP of Systems Integration at 4Wall]. They know how to do it and have many of the same folks, like Brent, on the project over the years. They know the pitfalls and how to do it quickly and efficiently. They've been fabulous. We dragged in some new folks from 4Wall Vegas-Ashleigh Barrera as Systems Project Manager and Kyle Arnold as Systems Engineer this year, as they did a lot of the fabrication. Kyle was onsite the whole time. We also did a lot of testing at trial runs at their facility."

As Saks' flagship is located just across Fifth Avenue from the Channel Gardens and the Rockefeller Center Ice Rink with its iconic Christmas Tree, those gardens between the buildings provide a unique view of the whole Saks' façade and let more people view the shows that run every hour. "We adjusted the angle of the large diamond pieces for the optimal viewing for people in the Channel Gardens," explains Werner. "They are tilted forward away from the building, so you see the Rock Center tree behind you in the reflections. That took a little bit of math, but it's pretty cool. We checked the night of the test for the tree lighting and we got it right. Also, we are next door to St. Patrick's Cathedral, so our show is offset from their bells. There are a lot of unique challenges working on this project. It's a landmarked building, so we install everything in a non-destructive manner, which means someone's had to engineer and fabricate clever attachment methods, including drilling into mortar joints, not through bricks."

Werner and his team are rightfully proud of their work on this project. "The commentary on the street was really positive about this year's show. It's nice that our little show touches so many people who get the opportunity to see it and experience it each holiday season. We are very proud of our work on it."

Vendor View

4Wall Entertainment
Kyle Arnold, Systems Engineer
Ashleigh Barrera, Systems Project Manager

On the solutions 4Wall provided:
We did all the initial engineering to develop the materials for the lighting products as well as the control system, so for every scenic piece we engineered, designed and fabricated an IP65 rated control box for it and then laid the cable paths to the different server rooms. We provided shop coordination and supervision for the American Christmas team who physically installed the lighting into the scenic elements, making sure it was completely controllable, then did all the shop testing prior to going on site.

On the coordination of all the vendors:
Kyle Arnold: There is so much coordination between all of us because the product bounces between everyone. AMA fabricates the scenery then hands it to American Christmas who installs the lights. The control enclosures were fabricated in our Las Vegas facility and shipped to American Christmas for installation in the scenery. Then it comes to 4Wall for final testing and AMA delivers to the site. On site, it's back in our hands to test prior to installation. When we give it the all-clear, AMA installs it on the side of the building. The coordination and flow were quite a ballet of movements.

On supporting the design team:
AB: Chris and his Lunar Telephone Co. were absolutely amazing to work with, and very flexible, which was important as we had a ton of time constraints. We had 50 nights on site for the full installation. Some days were short as we were only there to test a scenic piece before it flew, because it's easier to fix it on the ground than in the air. Through thick, thin, cold, and wet we saw it to completion as a team.

KA: We got Chris' big vision and figured out how to make a system that could handle the power and data. It's about getting down to every little detail as we figure out exactly how all that comes together. All this equipment has to live outdoors, so it all has to be weatherized. 4Wall really supports his, and the client's vision and expectations of the overall project.

On why 4Wall was the right vendor:
KA: 4Wall works closely with our clients in the sense of catering to their every detailed need. And though we are a big enough company to support a project of any size, scale, and scope, we're also personable enough to where we're able to make the relationship long and lasting. At 4Wall we make sure that we're able to suit every single one of the needs that the client has.

AB: I honestly think we're one of the best integrators in the world. Besides all our locations, we have just a great history, experience, and deep technical knowledge with our teams-from creation to completion. I think we offer a unique service, and we can pull from our numerous locations.

On the final project:
KA: It was really fulfilling to walk down Fifth Avenue and see a Christmas display that we've been sweating over for months. There's nothing more rewarding than seeing people enjoying something you've worked so hard and tirelessly on.

AB: This relationship has been going on for 11 years with American Christmas, and they keep coming to us because we're good partners that have proven to be able to always get it across the finish line, no matter what challenges present themselves. It really is a partnership with a common goal to make Christmas magic in New York City for people to experience.