It connects the city both physically and emotionally.

(crowd cheering) It's the backdrop to concerts, festivals, and recreation.

It's hard to imagine Milwaukee without it.

Light the Hoan is the organization that ushered in a new era for the bridge.

Together with local businesses and civic leaders, they gave the Hoan a whole new purpose.

(tranquil music) Erika Smith is the executive director of Light the Hoan.

I sat down with her to learn more about the organization.

Erika, thank you for sitting down with me.

- Thank you so much for the invitation.

We're really excited.

- Erika, how many lights are on the Hoan?

- So we have 2,500 lights on the Hoan Bridge.

They're actually called nodes.

And so each of the nodes have 10 individual light colors in them, and they're all magnetically held onto the Hoan Bridge.

And the magnets are the size of a hockey puck, and they hold up to 100 pounds.

- That's a huge magnet.

- It is a huge magnet.

And when we were looking at kind of the infrastructure and how we are gonna continue to kind of build these lights out there, one, we didn't want to drill into the bridge because, you know, the DOT does own the bridge, and we wanted to make sure that if we needed to replace or do anything, it was an easy fix for us.

And so when we worked with some of our vendors, they said, "Let's go with the 100-pound magnet," 'cause we wanna make sure we're gonna uphold our winters.

So being able to kind of have them with that large magnetic is a way that we haven't lost any.

- Well, there's so much to learn about Light the Hoan.

How and when did Light the Hoan start?

- We actually just celebrated our four-year anniversary.

So, October 2020 was the first year that the lights officially were lit, and they've been lit every night since.

It started with our two founders just kind of having conversations and getting the ideas of, "Hey, we should put lights on this bridge."

Well, that's kind of crazy.

And back then you didn't see a lot of lights in a lot of the different illuminating buildings going on and stuff.

Now it's been on four years.

I don't think the city can imagine what it would be like without 'em.

- It is definitely a distinct part of our landscape now.

And what kind of impact do you think it makes on the community to have beautiful lights on a bridge?

- When we initially lit the lights, I don't think we understood the impact they were gonna be making, (upbeat music) whether it's gonna be creating awareness for our cause, whether we're celebrating with the city as well as continuing to find unique ways to engage the city.

But I think our top goal right now is to continue to find ways to engage the community and find unique ways to bring people together and have those shared experiences.

- When you talk about engaging with the community, Light the Hoan is more than just beautifying the city with pretty lights on the bridge.

How are you using Light the Hoan to truly connect with the community?

- Our fourth-annual intern challenge just happened, and this past year we worked with 16 large Milwaukee organizations, over 500 interns, to create their own light show that best represented their company that they work for, their brand, and their mission, so what did they want to tell the story of their company and their internship through lights.

(upbeat music continues) - And that's 15 different organizations in the city, companies that have their headquarters in Milwaukee or non-for-profits that are here, and they get to be part of that but also work interdepartmentally.

It really is an interesting way to still build more community pride and community involvement.

- And that was one of the initial missions when we went out to set out with Intern Challenge, is there's really no activities within the city that bring all interns together.

A lot of organizations do a great job of engaging their interns at their company but not bring them all together.

And our goal was to continue to retain tech here in the city and show that Milwaukee's doing cool things.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) Do you wanna build a show?

- Sure.

- Do you have any colors in mind, anything that's special to you that you want to put on the Hoan?

- I like sparkles and shine- - Oh, perfect.

- Which work any time of year.

- And there's one effect that I like that has a shimmer to it.

- Our sparkle effect.

- Well, it must be.

(Erika laughs) It must be called sparkle effect, so, yeah, the kind of disco ball but the truly lighting the Hoan, making it bright and pretty.

I think I like the idea of sparkles on the arcs.

Can you ever have too much sparkle in your opinion?

'Cause, you know, like- - Fuzz copy, which is a sparkle effect, is my absolute favorite, (Sandy laughs) so there's no doubt that I love sparkles.

- I know I'm a some is good, more is better, but I know that's not art.

You know, sometimes less is more.

So how would you suggest supplementing, okay, Sandy wants sparkles on the arches?

- So you like the sparkle effect, and you liked them on the arch, so I'm going to find where that is on here.

And we're gonna pull the sparkle effect over onto the west side.

We're gonna put it on loop or hold the end here.

That just means it doesn't end after this timeframe.

So if you wanna take a look at what yours looks like here, you have sparkles.

Now, you can add color if you want to.

This is just white sparkles.

Do you want color under your sparkle?

- Yeah, should we put white under this?

That way it looks more sparkly, or what do you suggest?

- [Erika] Let's do, we'll do blue.

- You know what else I like that I've noticed?

I like the motion where you can see maybe a circle move across 'cause I never really thought with just the simple lines of the design of the Hoan Bridge that you really can create motion like a sun rising or a ball moving across.

- Or a beer filling up.

- A beer filling up, oh, I like that idea.

So we can make like a champagne effect.

So the arc could be the bubbly on the top of the champagne.

Do we have like maybe yellow colors move up so it looks like you're- - We do.

- Pouring champagne.

- We do have that.

- And we can toast to our success later.

- Yes, (laughs) absolutely.

- We wanna make it look like champagne.

Is there a light golden color?

Or we can go pink champagne (gasps).

- Rose.

- Oh, there you go.

So I'm already feeling the giddy, ooh.

- I like the pink actually not flashing 'cause it adds more effect on the sparkles.

- I love that, but in real life, are there any concerns?

Have you gotten any, like... Have you ever gotten any feedback that it's too distracting?

- We do have a couple things with our agreement with the DOT, no strobing.

- Okay.

- That's one.

So no big flashing of the lights, no strobing.

We don't have any symbols, words, or logos.

Those are the other kind of agreements that we have there.

- This is just fizzy and fun.

- Yeah, I like this.

This actually might be one of my favorite ones, might be a go-to one now.

- Excellent.

- Rose all day.

- (laughs) Sandy's Show.

It's gonna sparkle.

You might even say Sandy's Sparkly Show.

- Yeah.

(laughs) (upbeat music) You ready to see your show?

- Can I hit the button?

- Let's do it.

- Okay.

- We're gonna watch you hit the button.

- [Sandy] Whoo.

- [Erika] There it is.

- There it goes, filling up, filling up.

And it's fun to see it reflect on the water.

Oh, I love it.

I toast to a new design for Light the Hoan.

Thank you, Erika.

This is really special.

Erika, this is now.

What is the future of Light the Hoan?

- Well, our first goal is to complete our commitment to the community, and that's to light the east side of the Hoan Bridge.

- [Sandy] Because, yeah, then when people are coming in, they're flying in, they're gonna see that side with the city as the background.

- [Erika] Whether you're flying in from Discovery World, Veterans Park- - Oh yeah.

- South Shore.

If you're out boating, maybe in Michigan.

I don't know, (snapping) yeah.

- I like that idea.

(Erika laughs) - [Erika] Big dreams, big dreams.

- Thank you so much for making this a special night and for truly enlightening the city with Light the Hoan.

It's wonderful.

- Thank you so much.

I love sharing our mission.

- [Sandy] Thanks for watching this special feature about Light the Hoan, one of the best beautification projects to ever happen in Milwaukee.

If you enjoyed this video, please like, subscribe, and turn on notifications for stories of beauty in our community.