Ukraine’s Magic Innovations creates New Year’s show for Burj Khalifa. Here is the story

The 2022 New Year Show for the world-highest skyscraper Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates was created by a Ukrainian company — Magic Innovations 3D Studio. A team of 20 professionals spent 500 hours to render the content and three months to implement it. AIN.UA’s journalist asked the company’s representatives about the details of this project.

How it started

The development of the new year show for Burj Khalifa in the UAE was a dream of Magic Innovations for years.

In 2016, Magic Innovations became the first Ukrainian company among the Berlin Festival of Lights winners. It is one of the most precious prizes for 3D mapping studios. In the following year, the team watched a show on Burj Khalifa for the first time and got inspired to develop content for the highest building in the world. As a result, magic Innovations applied for the new year’s show, but they failed to win in 2017.

The team got another fail in 2018, but then they got a contract to develop content for Burj Khalifa dedicated to the biggest holiday in the United Arab Emirates — EID Mubarak. The viewers liked the show so much that it was prolonged for an additional week, the Magic Innovations reps recalled. The following year, the team received an offer to become a part of the main show. The content the Ukrainians created was presented on the skyscraper surface every day.

Since then, Magic Innovations’ dream has become a bit closer. The management of the operator EMAAR appreciated their work. They checked the portfolio of Ukrainian specialists and offered them to develop new year content.

“3D mapping perfectly illustrates how art and technology enhance the interaction between society, business, and the architectural environment. It’s striking and eye-catching at a time when it’s not so easy to be surprised and stay in people’s memories for a long time,” the Magic Innovations team notes.

Preparations to the Show and its realization

About 20 people from Magic Innovations worked on the content for the Eve of Wonder show. There were concept artists, 3D designers, motion designers, VFX designers, a project manager, an art director, a creative director, and others.

For Burj Khalifa, with its world-biggest 828-meter LED screen, the team created over 200 unique scenes. The first stage was the confirmation of concept arts. Then they have been recreated in the 3D format, followed by VFX effects and motion design elements. Finally, the team worked for three months on the presentation of a one-kilometer video.

More than 20 powerful graphic design computers, a render farm, and special animation software have been used to realize this project. To create a 15-minute show, they needed over 500 hours of content rendering.

Magic Innovations did not comment on the financial details under the terms of the contract with the customer.

According to Magic Innovations, the show was transmitted using the V-Stick technology — thin sticks, 30 to 50 cm long, with high-performance LEDs. Every LED serves as a pixel with a standalone control and can broadcast simple static colors and dynamic video effects. The total length of all “LED sticks” used on the facade of Burj Khalifa was 28 km.

“Because of the complexity of the building, such aspects were important to take into account. Only in the case of perfectly calculated graphics, the effect of one picture became possible,” commented the reps of Magic Innovations.

The new year show created by Ukrainians was live-aired via different platforms and TV channels. Millions of people around the globe watched it. Some analysts say the audience of the Burj Khalifa new year show was larger than of the Olympics finals, Magic Innovations added.

About Magic Innovations

• Magic Innovations has been on the market since 2015. The founder is Ostap Khytruk, a Ukrainian businessman and innovator who lives in Dubai.
• The company has offices in Kyiv, Dubai, and New York, as well as clients across over 20 countries.
• Magic Innovations belong to the TOP 10 Best Digital Studios of the world. In 2017, they were acknowledged for the national record — The nation-largest projection — thanks to their 3D show on the Motherland monument during the Eurovision 2017 in Kyiv.

Speaking of the future, Magic Innovations references the Burj Khalifa project. The team believes that it was an excellent opportunity to make the name in the world and join the “premier league” of the world-best innovation and 3D graphics companies.

The Ukrainian professionals’ dream is art creation on the most prominent buildings globally and the development of permanent visual installations for famous museums, galleries, and art spaces.

“Speaking about events, we would like to participate in the next Olympics and Oscar celebrations,” Magic Innovations resumed.