The Macy’s Holiday Window at their flagship store in New York City was transformed by Gen City Labs into an interactive “virtual parade” experience for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The holiday display invited passersby to engage with hand gestures—waving to sprinkle confetti, opening animated doors, triggering character animations, and unlocking hidden moments. Over its two-week run, the installation generated more than 250,000 impressions and drew thousands of participants.
We handled UI design, front-end development, and full technology integration. To overcome challenges such as double-pane glass and outdoor glare, our team built a custom computer-vision system that tracked hand motion through a standard 2D camera. The system drove confetti effects, animated characters, and interactive doors in real time. Software included openFrameworks with custom parallax scene classes for infinite tiling backgrounds and efficient video handling. Hardware featured a 1080p webcam, a custom PC, and a 46-inch LCD screen.
The Macy’s Holiday Window drew consistent crowds who stopped to wave, play, and share the spectacle on social media. The activation demonstrated Macy’s blend of tradition and innovation—delivering a seasonal favorite with a fresh digital twist. For another playful retail activation, explore our Artistic Ace project; for large-scale pop culture engagement, see our Game of Thrones interactive activation. You can also read more about Macy’s annual holiday windows at the Macy’s holiday windows page.
FAQs
Q: What is the Macy’s Holiday Window interactive experience? A: A digital holiday window by Gen City Labs where visitors wave their hands to trigger confetti, open doors, and animate characters as part of a “virtual parade.”
Q: How do people interact with the display? A: By moving or waving in front of the glass; the system detects motion through a 2D camera and triggers confetti, animation, and scene changes.
Q: What technology powered it? A: Software: openFrameworks, custom parallax classes, motion tracking. Hardware: 1080p webcam, a custom PC, and a 46-inch LCD.
Q: How many people experienced it? A: More than 250,000 impressions in two weeks, with thousands actively engaging on site.
Credits
Gen City Labs implemented the UI Design, Front End Development and Technology Integration on this project.
Project Video Music: “Bees Bein’ Strugglin'” by The Octopus Project
Category
Flagship Retail
Process
Storefront windows always present some environmental challenges: Infrared interference, camera color correction, and having the screen behind double-pane class prevents some interactive technologies. We opted to use a computer vision technique called Optical Flow. By using a standard 2D camera, the computer vision breaks the pixels to determine the direction pixels are moving as well as the velocity. We used this data to generate Confetti Particles and interact with the environment. A parallaxing scene class was made for OpenFrameworks which allowed for an infinite tiling background to move at various speeds. Due to the high number of image sequences, we had to get creative and save some video memory. We created a system that allowed us to move images quences along a Path to avoid storing large sequences of mostly transparent pixels.
