CYPRESS, Calif. – Fan engagement for the University of Florida’s One Gator Nation is even stronger this season thanks to several stunning on-court projection mapping shows powered by Christie® and Quince Imaging. Installed in the O’Connell Center, commonly known as the O’Dome, four Christie Boxer 2K30 projectors and a Christie Pandoras Box Manager are energizing both Gators’ players and fans with virtual alligators, dozens of NCAA and Southeast Conference (SEC) championship banners , athlete photos and stats, and more to celebrate The Orange and Blue’s volleyball, basketball and gymnastics teams.
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The school experimented with the technology for one game in February 2017 and the reaction from players, fans and administrators was so positive, they made it permanent with customized content for each Gator team.
“The Florida Gators installed this new system not so much to promote themselves, but more to service their amazing fan base. They have such a huge following for volleyball and gymnastics as well as basketball,” said Eric Gazzillo, display designer, Quince Imaging. “We wanted to have as many of the future-proofed tools, scalability and redundancies of a professional (sports) system but within the competitive price range of a university. You want not only the special effects, but a system that will last.”
How and why Christie Boxer and Pandoras Box were the right choice
With two projectors on either side of center court, the four Boxer projectors blend their content into one seamless image and Gazzillo said Boxer was chosen not only for its brightness but even more so for its low maintenance and built-in 6-lamp per unit redundancy. In addition, the school can upgrade in the future to the Boxer 4K30 without a big hardware upgrade or any downtime for maintenance.
“Having the increased lamp hours over other 30,000 lumen projectors out there, that’s a huge factor. Christie Boxer is going to get them the best cost of ownership, and having more run-time hours per lamp-set will help the team the most over the long-term,” Gazzillo added.
The Pandoras Box provides real time compositing of the imagery – including what looks like flames along the foul line and 3-point lines – as well as the ability to add motion tracking and Christie Mystique in the future.
“What’s unique about this is—compared to the NBA and NHL—is the Gators have four different teams working with this system: women’s volleyball, men’s and women’s basketball, and women’s gymnastics. So to get the right mapping effects for each sport, it’s a matter of swapping out the templates that each team requires and swapping out the media in Pandoras Box.”
Bringing a different level of excitement to players and fans
“Our administration loves it, our fans love it and it is just really, really cool – it creates energy before games,” said Alicia Longworth, Assistant Athletic Director, Marketing & Promotions, Florida Gators. “We have video boards and really impactful sound systems, but being able to project onto the court brings a different level of excitement, especially for first-time fans or for a team that hasn’t been here before.
“I have heard so many good things about this from a number of our counterparts – and not just in the SEC,” Longworth continued, “but around the country. It is definitely something that we’ve had quite a number of people who have reached out and asked how we do it and whom we worked with. We’ve definitely heard a lot of ‘Hey, how come we don’t have that too’ from visiting teams.”
The Christie® Boxer Series of 3DLP® projectors deliver premium performance and reliability in demanding environments such as sports arenas and live events staging applications. When combined with the powerful Pandoras Box media server, users can unleash their imagination to create memorable visual experiences while maintaining complete control over the entire workflow.
