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Snapchat Debuts Live Times Square AR Billboard Experience
Snapchat and OUTFRONT Media brought visitors live onto Times Square billboards through Crowd Created, a timed AR activation tied to HBO Max’s House of the Dragon Season 3.
Snapchat and OUTFRONT Media debuted Crowd Created, a live augmented-reality spectacle in New York City’s Times Square, on June 18, 2026. The activation let visitors appear live on OUTFRONT’s Duo Duffy billboards after using a full-body, four-sided Snapchat AR Mirror.
How the Times Square activation worked
Visitors could take part between 3:00 PM and 7:00 PM on June 18. The experience combined the AR Mirror with custom House of the Dragon AR Lenses, then projected participants onto the billboards. That sequence connected an in-person Snapchat interaction with a public display in one of the world’s most recognizable advertising locations.
Snap describes Crowd Created as the first Snapchat AR experience to project visitors live onto Times Square billboards. It also calls the setup the first four-sided AR Mirror. The four-sided design matters because the experience was built around a visitor’s full body rather than a face-only camera effect, according to the launch details.
A timed launch for House of the Dragon
HBO Max was the official launch partner. The activation was tied to House of the Dragon Season 3, which was scheduled to premiere on June 21, 2026. The three-day gap placed the public AR event directly ahead of the season’s debut, giving the partnership a fixed moment in Times Square rather than presenting Crowd Created as an always-available Snapchat feature.
For Snapchat, the confirmed change is the setting and scale of the AR experience. Participants were not only viewing an effect through a phone; they were placed into a live billboard spectacle in front of Times Square visitors. That makes the activation relevant to people interested in how social apps are extending camera effects into physical spaces, as well as to brands using mobile AR for event-based campaigns.
What the announcement confirms
The documented access window was limited to the June 18 event, from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM, and the location was Times Square in New York City. The confirmed partner was HBO Max, with the activation linked to the June 21 premiere of House of the Dragon Season 3. Those details define Crowd Created as a location-based spectacle with a specific launch schedule.
Crowd Created’s significance lies in moving Snapchat AR from a personal camera view to a shared public screen. The event’s practical result was immediate and visible: visitors could use Snapchat’s custom lenses, then see themselves projected live across OUTFRONT’s Duo Duffy billboards.
Snapchat and OUTFRONT’s Times Square activation shows how mobile AR can become a live media event when the camera, the participant and the billboard are connected. For readers, the key takeaway is narrow but concrete: Crowd Created introduced a first-of-its-kind Snapchat projection experience for a four-hour New York event tied to HBO Max’s June 21 premiere.
Official sources
Official source: newsroom.snap.com
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