Super Bowl LIX projection mapping lights up iconic landmarks with Screenberry

bluemedia (now part of Wasserman Group) and Omnispace360 relied on a Screenberry media server to drive a spectacular projection mapping show on New Orleans’ most prominent historic buildings during the Super Bowl LIX week.

A key highlight of the official pre-game program was a projection-mapping show at Jackson Square, the historic and cultural heart of the French Quarter. The centerpiece of the display was St. Louis Cathedral — one of the oldest Catholic cathedrals in the United States. With its tall spires and tiered, highly symmetrical façade, it offered a striking vertical canvas for 3D mapping. The projection also extended across the façades of the two museums flanking the cathedral: the Cabildo and the Presbytère.

To deliver bright, high-resolution imagery across this wide multi-building surface (viewed from relatively close distances), the production team deployed 12 powerful Barco UDX-4K40 projectors with a total output of 480,000 lumens.

A major challenge for the production team was dealing with the dense trees, ornate iron gates, and multiple lamp posts in front of the buildings. To overcome this, the team designed a projector layout that avoided shadows and minimized visual obstructions for the audience. The setup included two scaffolding towers holding three projectors each, complemented by six smaller side towers, each carrying one projector in portrait orientation.

All content playback was handled by a single Screenberry Atlas x12 media server driving a 13,680 x 6,240 px canvas, with a second unit running in hot backup. In addition to video outputs, Screenberry managed stereo audio via Dante and controlled the lighting fixtures integrated into the show. The single-server setup ensured that all outputs remained perfectly in sync.

Screenberry’s 3D Scene editor played a critical role in aligning the projections to the complex geometries of the historic buildings. Working with detailed 3D models, the team used advanced pose-estimation tools to refine the virtual projectors’ position, orientation, throw ratio, and lens shift, matching them precisely to the physical setup. This approach delivered accurate multi-projector blending and pixel-perfect mapping while significantly reducing on-site alignment time.

The nightly light show ran every 30 minutes starting at 6:30 p.m. from February 2 through February 9, pairing Super Bowl–themed content with artwork by local New Orleans artists. A soundtrack infused with jazz, blues, and rock ’n’ roll underscored the city’s musical heritage and amplified the immersive atmosphere.

The installation quickly became a major attraction, drawing thousands of visitors to Jackson Square every evening and celebrating both American football and New Orleans’ unique cultural identity. It also served as a visual centerpiece of the “Our City, Our Cathedral” campaign, helping raise awareness for the preservation and restoration of one of the city’s most iconic landmarks