That Giant LED Statue Concept Finally Finds A First Home

January 17, 2024 by Dave Haynes

The Irish company that’s been touting, for a few years now, the idea of giant LED-driven humanoids that show images of famous people has finally found a first home – in a US shopping mall that is all about the bling.

A couple of news outlets – including AV Interactive – are reporting that Dublin start-up The Giant Company will work with the American Dream Mall in New Jersey to develop what would be called The Giant at American Dream, with a target launch of January 2025.

The “Giant” would be the tallest moving statue in the world, at 16.5 meters, or 54 feet.

American Dream is a new-ish mall across the Hudson from New York City. Its attractions include an indoor waterpark and artificial ski slope. The mall was developed by the same Canadian company that built the West Edmonton Mall and then the Mall of America. As with those malls, there is a heavy, heavy emphasis on experience and novel attractions. The West Ed Mall, at one time, had an underwater submarine ride.

So a huge statue that shows a 54 foot Beyonce is pretty much on brand for the mall’s backers, the family-owned and run Triple Five Group.

The Giant is touted as having custom addressable LEDs and supporting some basic movement, making it possible for the things to feature famous people, but also capture, map and then display giant selfies of the people who pay to see the attraction up close.

The idea is that it can show oversized famous people, or a slightly smaller Victor Wembanyama, the French NBA player who is 7’4″.

 There will be hourly Giant shows of famous people, with the arms and head capable of subtle movement. The attraction will make money via a volumetric scanning set-up that will put mall-goers on the Giant statue, and turn that into digital keepsakes and social shares.

When launched in 2021, the company said it was pitching to put 21 giant LED-driven statues in 21 cities around the world by the end of that year. But that was in the middle of the pandemic, which would have slowed things.

I suspect it was also slowed by the recurring response of pitch targets that probably started with: “Sorry … you want to do what???”

 

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