Creative Technology serves 2010 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals
The 2010 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, held for the second year at London’s O2 Arena, was a visually spectacular sporting event combining the world’s top players staged with the latest LED screens and projection, creating a breathtaking atmosphere amongst spectators.
One of the biggest challenges in sports presentation is ensuring your event stands out from the crowd. The Barclays ATP World Tour Finals has successfully achieved this through the use of the latest in innovative display technology, provided for the second consecutive year by Creative Technology (CT). As Steve Purkess, CT’s Account Manager for this event comments: “We have strived to provide the quality and high level of service that the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals merits, looking at each element to see where we can improve our delivery. The introduction of the Panasonic 12F LED system moved the event on from 2009 bringing exceptional quality, leaving both the client and spectators incredibly satisfied and adding to the increasing popularity of the tournament in the UK market.”.
Creative Technology worked alongside the ATP to deliver the display technology that set the event apart on the sporting events calendar. Recognising that choosing a high quality LED display was key to delivering the combination of scoring data, centre court action, player intro VTs and the sponsor branding, CT put together a complete visual package for the event. As Purkess continues, “There was really only one product to consider, our Panasonic 12F LED display has high contrast and high quality image processing meaning it delivered on all fronts”. The 12F was used in the form of a 102sqm court end display and as a four sided gondola flown above the court. In addition there were screens located in the ‘fanzone’ and the foyer of The O2 for spectators to watch the action. CT also provided three 9sqm Barco ILite screens sited in the media centre further to more than 100 plasmas screens located in and around the Arena.
Ignite supplied the show presentation services during the lead up to each match, working closely with CT who provided four vertically mounted Barco FLM R20k projectors that displayed the visually stunning pre-match animated content onto the court.
120 linear meters of Olite 612 LED screen was also provided by CT, creating the courtside perimeter display. These high resolution banner screens provided a luminescent band around the court, which was used to great effect by Ignite utilising CT’s control system in the pre-match build up. The control system enabled co-ordinated close ups and replays of players and the shots across all the Arena displays. Graham Miller, CT’s Project Manager was delighted with, “how all the visual elements worked in unison with each other, providing the entire arena with outstanding spectacular visual effects, delivering a truly visual experience to the spectators.”
The tournament has been contested in major cities around the world with a history dating back to the birth of The Masters in Tokyo in 1970. 2009 saw the tournament reborn as the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals and the event will be held at The O2 until 2013. This year Roger Federer beat Rafael Nadal 6-3 3-6 6-1 to become 2010’s Barclays ATP World Tour Finals champion.
Display control
For an event of this scale it is important to achieve a single point of control for all the displays in the Arena. With video sources from Ignite, ATP Media and IDS, and numerous VTs and branding content on CT Watchout channels, the choice for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals was the Vista Spyder X20. Through the X20, CT were able to control the Watchout playback and source switching to each display ensuring seamless content delivery during the player entrance presentation through to the courtside banner branding rotations.
Courtside banner screens
CT provided an LED banner surrounding the courtside that displayed sponsor branding and imagery. An automatic logging system was utilised ensuring that the rotations of logos met up with the contractual obligations to the sponsors.
The courtside banner was comprised of six sections of 20m OLite 612 banner screens angled back on bespoke banner frames which suit both The O2 viewing environment and protected the LED from ball strike. The banner frames included an antiglare acrylic sheet and the high level finish was completed with vented top plates fixed to the banners with a fomex back panel.
With great variance in game duration and the branding rotations restricted to breaks in play, the image rotations were played back from Watchout, triggered by the show operator using Spyder with Medialon automatically timing and logging branding exposure. This system enabled monitoring of the sponsor exposure and catch up if certain brands were falling short.
Court Projection
As part of the player presentation before each match, a VT was projected onto the court introducing the players. With the court surface made up of a dark blue non-reflective acrylic on wood, projecting a bright enough image to provide the result required proved quite challenging. After projection tests at CT’s warehouse the decision was made to use four Barco FLM R20k projectors in two doubled pairs, each pair projecting on each half of the court.
Arena LED flown screens
CT provided five Panasonic 12F LED screens in the Arena totalling 162sqm. The quality of the display was a marked improvement from the 2009 event in almost all areas. The Panasonic 12F delivers 12mm resolution with high contrast, a must for when the scoring data was displayed. As these were the only scoreboards in the Arena it was vital that the gondola scoreboards were easily viewed from both the courtside and the top seating tier of the venue. The revolutionary display design of the Panasonic 12F provided a clear image for all spectators.
Data distribution from control area to the screens could have become a mammoth task, but using CT’s stock of video - fibre transceivers the internal O2 fibre network was used, reducing the task to a much more manageable job.
Information Screens
Outside of the Arena a further two Panasonic 12F screens brought a combination of action, results, VT replay and event messages to the public in the Foyer and Fanzone. A new requirement for 2010, the challenge was to provide a one box solution for the information screens, one that could take scoring info from a database or excel spreadsheet, live video, Playback VT ad loops and display messages from the ATP to the public. The CT approach was to use Ventuz display channels and create a bespoke interface with the database, excel and video sources in order that the system did not require a dedicated operator. So after the initial set up and entry of the pertinent messages information screens the two Ventuz channels operated as separate entities.
HD IPTV system
A requirement of nearly every sporting event is the closed circuit television network. Showing local and broadcast channels can be achieved a number of ways, but to retain the HD quality of the local television output, IPTV is an obvious choice. For the Media Centre, Hospitality and various other locations CT supplied 108 HD LCD screens, utilising the venue network and fibre infrastructure enabled the coverage to reach all corners of The O2, encoding four channels locally as well as the off air signals. Over a dedicated network CT distributed HD scoring data, HD Singles and Doubles matches with commentary, HD Singles and Doubles matches without commentary and free to air channels to the sets using an IP streaming technology.
Media Centre
Evermore important to the success of an event, the Global Sport Event Media Centre needs to project the values of the event to the world press, thus the video displays are key element in the Media Centre. CT supplied three 9sqm 16:9 Barco i6 LED screens to the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals Media Centre, each fed from the IPTV system and able to display either live video from the court or scoring and statistics from the game. High resolution was critical to success and due to the Media Centre layout and ambient lighting conditions LED was the ideal solution.