54 RETAIL & HOSPITALITY
EXPERIENCE
ALL ABOARD THE 16K EXPRESS Eight million visitors later, Union Station’s showstopping spectacle gets a refresh – and it’s anything but subtle Words Verity Butler
I f you step inside St Louis Union Station after dark, it doesn’t take Hall, once a bustling gateway for rail travel in 1894, now pulses with light and colour. This is due to its starring feature, The Grand Hall Experience, an award- winning projection-mapped show that has just received a serious glow up. Behind the refresh is company DreamLab Immersive, led by founder and executive creative director John Miceli, who brings both gravitas and enthusiasm to the project. “DreamLab is the third company I long to realise this isn’t your average hotel lobby. The cavernous Grand have founded in my 35-year-long career. I’ve been blessed to work on incredible projects around the globe with the best of the best talent in the industry,” he says. “I have spent my career working at the intersection of storytelling, media technology and immersive experience design, leading projects that bring architecture and narrative to life in innovative ways.” Originally launched back in 2014, the installation has already pulled in more than eight million visitors and picked up lots of industry accolades along the way. But even landmarks need the occasional refresh. As Miceli puts it: “DreamLab and Lodging Hospitality Management (LHM) saw an opportunity to raise the visual and emotional impact of the show. The primary goal was to bring the experience up to current technological standards – upgrading to higher resolution, richer colour, smoother frame rates and more dynamic shows, while preserving the architectural integrity and magic of the space.” This wasn’t a simple retrofit, it was a from-the-ground-up rethink. “The refresh was quite comprehensive. We didn’t just patch things up, we rebuilt the system from fibre to lens to suit a next-generation immersive show environment.” That rebuild includes Christie Griffyn 4K50-RGB pure laser
projectors that blast 50,000 lumens onto the Grand Hall’s massive end walls, paired with a fleet of Jazz Series projectors that map the sweeping barrel vault ceiling. The result is a canvas that feels bigger, brighter and dramatically more alive. “With the new projection hardware and server capability, we have expanded the coverage and re-rendered all existing shows to 16K resolution at 60 frames per second, giving each vignette even more clarity, depth and fluid motion,” Miceli explains. “The projectors brought an expanded canvas, letting us reenvision the original shows and add content to expand the story.”
Jazz Series
projectors map the barrel vault ceiling of St Louis Union train station
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