Lyon Square
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Lyon Square *
HOW LIVESPACE TURNED LYON SQUARE INTO A YEAR-ROUND DIGITAL CANVAS
Wedged between DeVos Place and the Amway Hotel, Lyon Square is an important hub in downtown Grand Rapids. Because of its proximity to several restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues, Lyon Square receives an abundance of foot traffic from both tourists and locals. The City of Grand Rapids and Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. (DGRI) have occasionally utilized the space for events and public gatherings. However, back in 2025, the City decided to invest in a more permanent addition to the space and partnered up with LiveSpace to bring this concept to life.
This project is specifically focused around the Civic Auditorium at Lyon Square, which is the south entrance to DeVos Place. The use of projection mapping on the Civic Auditorium is not a new concept. In fact, LiveSpace worked on a very similar project back in 2022. However, that was just temporary. This time around, over the course of 10 weeks, the LiveSpace integration team worked to make this a permanent feature of Lyon Square, by installing a brand new audio system as well as a new projection system, complete with Pandora’s Box.
The “canvas” in which the content is projected onto is the Civic Auditorium. The projection stretches across the entire width of the building, including the pillars. This is achieved by blending two Titan WU 47000 projectors, totaling a resolution of 3820x1200. This translates to a massive 175’ x 50’ image. These projectors sit 12 feet above the ground, in specially designed enclosures.
Talk about Pandora’s Box here!
Talk about speakers here…
The projection mapping finally debuted on January 9, 2026 when World of Winter began. This annual 8-week festival includes art installations, live music and DJ performances, and now a projection mapping show. The first content to be displayed with the new system was Seasonal Wonders. This was a 15 minute video designed by DropDrop, a Grand-Rapids based production and animation group. While DropDrop did all the animating, the music was written and recorded by LiveSpace’s own Andy Ferris (Project Developer & Integration Support).
Andy quote
Wrap up now!
All the drone photos above were taken by Shafi Subhan.
All the photos of Seasonal Wonders are from DGRI.