Lighting the Beam
Building the Kings Light the Beam Button
This is a story of
Maintaining great relationships
On Halloween night 2022, the Kings unveiled the most innovative tradition in the history of sports, the Victory Beam. Overnight, a laser beam fixed to the top of Golden1 Center illuminated a loyal fan base and captivated sports fans around the globe. While the laser space cannon blazed bright outside of the arena, inside the arena the team lacked a way to initiate the beam that matched the celebration and flashiness of the beam outside.
Years prior, I led the creative team of the Sacramento Kings and had earned a reputation of building things, connecting with an eclectic mix of artists and fabricators and creating innovative experiential installations. In short, if something didn’t exist, my team and I could make it exist.
Shortly after the victory beam was launched, I received a text from the Kings Events Manager with a simple drawing of a purple “easy-button” and the question, “Do you know anyone that can build this?” The Events Manager and I had worked together for 10 years, and stayed in touch occasionally, but it was still quite a surprise to receive the note.
As a life-long fan and prior teammate I knew I didn’t want to just point him in the right direction, I wanted to help make it real! I quickly responded with “Dude. I can make that for you. Let’s do this!” And in two weeks I had the first version of the Kings Light the Beam button completed in time for the regular season opening game.
Initially, the Kings only needed an ornamental button that looked the part, but in my endless pursuit for creating cool experiences, I made it oversized and mechanical with an acrylic base that lights up purple when hit to signal the lighting of the beam. We continued to iterate on the design and settled on what I call the “Fuel Cell”, pairing the button with a podium size interactive base with animated led lights that swell from bottom to top giving the effect that the fuel for the Beam comes from the fans energy inside the arena!
