JORDAN

Turn All-Star Weekend into a Jordan takeover of New York City.

The centerpiece: a full-scale interactive LED time-capsule court at Penn Pavilion, where invitees could step into three eras of Michael Jordan’s greatest shots and walk out with a personalized clip to share in real time. Around it: an OOH takeover across midtown — the MSG marquee, Hotel Pennsylvania wrapped in banners, digital billboards running Jordan content all weekend.

A pop-up radio studio in Flatbush. A subway shoot with Carmelo Anthony. A shoe drop, and a Drake afterparty, in the same weekend Kanye launched Yeezy and Drake surprise-released If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late.

Seven-month build. One weekend to activate. No second take.

Three moments. Three eras. One court.

The Penn Pavilion installation was a full-scale interactive LED half-court that transformed between three of MJ’s most iconic buzzer-beaters — each with its own era-accurate crowd, uniform, arena, and audio. Invitees didn’t watch the moment. They recreated it. Motion graphics synced to real gameplay. Reference footage down to the footwork of the original shots.

Every session ended with a personalized 15-second social takeaway — captured, cut, and delivered to the player before they left the building.

In 2015, that capture-to-share pipeline didn’t exist as a playbook. We built it.

Seven months from concept to activation.

The court itself shipped from Korea five months before doors opened — pixel pitch spec’d by wall, hardware ordered against previz, crowd and crew positions designed into the physical space before a single LED panel was built. That was the easy part.

The hard part was running the weekend.

I was the single point of contact between Jordan, AKQA, and the production team — running OOH, live action, and post in parallel, and absorbing the OOH workstream from a partner agency when it needed more support. We stood up a satellite office in SOHO. Two shoot units moved around the city paparazzi-style, one covering talent moments, one covering OOH and retail. An on-site editorial post team at Penn Pavilion pulled cards, cut, and turned content around live. A dedicated capture team ran the personalized takeaway pipeline, delivering social-ready clips to every invitee who recreated a shot. Starbeast handled VFX under Nick Losq and Lloyd DeSouza. Nick Thomas and Maris Herrington ran a remote production pipeline out of LA.

Spike Lee and Chris D’Stefano hosted one of several activations at 166 Flatbush. Carmelo Anthony shot through the NYC subway with a mobile unit. We organized the Drake afterparty the same weekend Yeezy dropped and Drake surprise-released If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. MJ came to see the court.

Core on-site team of five: Tom Kenney directing, Yash Bhatt on camera, Justin Oberman line producing, Ian Gibson editing, and me holding it all together.

Every frame, every screen, every era, every location had to hit across one weekend in February. It did.

The activation took New York City for a weekend.

The court at Penn Pavilion ran continuous sessions. The MSG marquee played Jordan content above the most famous arena in basketball. Hotel Pennsylvania wore building-wrap banners across 7th Ave. 166 Flatbush became a pop-up radio studio. The subway shoot with Carmelo cut into the weekend’s content feed. A shoe reveal ran backstage on rotation.

Every piece connected back to the court.

Grand Prix. Six Golds. Cultural impact.

Cannes Lions — Grand Prix + 6 Golds across Brand Experience, Creative Technology, Experiential Events, Responsive Environments, and Branded Spatial Installation.