Show content from Live Design Magazine: On Sunday, 82,529 fans descended on MetLife Stadium in Rutherford, NJ, for what would be the most watched television event in history, to the tune of 111.5 million viewers. As the fans took their seats before the Super Bowl began, they were given a bag of goodies to help combat the expected cold temperatures, despite the balmy 49 degree kick-off temperature. In the bag of goodies, under the gloves, hand warmers, tissues, lip balm, and scarf, was a small black beanie in a bag with a warning label on the package telling fans not to open the bag until instructed to do so by the stadium announcer. Most fans followed instructions, but I had an idea what was in the bag and couldn’t resist opening it early. Most fans didn’t notice, at first, the three small LEDs and the infrared receiver mounted to the front of that hat, cleverly hidden within the logo of the Pepsi Halftime Show. Most fans didn’t realize that they would soon be a part of the largest human video screen ever created.
9 comments:
I love that the concept behind this technology is relatively simple but yields impressive results.
The one thing I couldn't stop thinking about while reading the article is how expensive a project like that is. That's so many hi-tech hats! I guess the NFL can afford it. I bet this company got a ton of coverage from the halftime show, and I wouldn't be surprised to read about more of their events soon. It seems they've found a great way to interact with audiences, and I look forward to their next projects.
I didn't actually watch the super Bowl, but I did look up the videos of the half time show after reading this article. I think that from a technical perspective this was a very impressive task. When I read the tittle I took a few minuets to think about how I would create this sort of setup. I had a few idea's but nothing as cool as what this team has created. The idea of using an IR projector to transmit the data to all the hats is really smart because it means much less (and cheaper)hardware on the hats. It's also smart because nothing that the audience does can mess up the image. For example it would be a night mare to try to work out where each hat was in the seats at any moment. This system allows all the hats to be anywhere and the image will still look great.
I would like to see how this tech could be adjusted to create screens that don't have to be in a single place. For example if you took the chips in these hats and let them float around in a pool or get moved around on a stage, they would still be able to create a single controlled image with out any extra work.
While I watching the halftime show I was wondering the whole time how they were getting content in the audience. I figured they must have just given everyone tiny LED screens to hold up but the actual solution is so much cooler. The part about figuring out IR control was really interesting. Using IR lamps in moving lamps to wash the audience is a really cool solution but using a projector to wash the entire house is even better. Hopefully this type of audience participation will continue to advance and we'll see even cooler effects in years to come.
This is a really cool concept and after reading the description, I'm amazed that they actually pulled it off. Audience participation isn't really something you can totally count on, but this totally worked and was impressive. Furthermore, I found it very...well nice isn't the best word, but nice that the Superbowl attendees were given "cold weather kits." So often we pay tons of money for crappy seats, and in this case, cold weather. It's reassuring to see the hosts being homely and providing for the patrons.
I love the way they built the system, when I've seen big crowd sourced things like this before, i always thought the technology worked based on location sensing and individual instrument addresses, I never really considered that it could be done by projecting an image in IR light and having receivers read the image at where ever they are, without anything actually having to know where they are, or worry about mapping individual pixels to individual hats. Just as Camille said, i cant imagine how expensive it would be to produce all of these hats to give away with tickets.
This was a really impressive affect for the superbowl. As Chris mentioned, I have also seen large scale crowed video technology used before. It creates really dynamic effects and leaves people stunned as to how the designer did it. This is just another example of the media world colliding with the lighting world.
I didn't realize until after reading the article that it was written by Jackson, very cool. I did not watch the superbowl this year so I had not heard anything about this or the halftime show in general. This seems like an awesome idea and I will have to look for videos of this to see how it turned out. I especially like how they pushed the content to the hats with the IR wash, quite innovative.
I love it when the superbowl halftime show uses technology in a really interesting way, and i think this is a very nice idea. I have actually kind of come to expect this type of live entertainment innovation every year. With this being said though, I thought this technology kind of fell flat. I had to go back and rewatch the video to even notice it. I dont know whether it was the camera shots or the fact that it wasnt very bright or very defined, but this hat technology just didnt make much of an impact on me as a viewer.
I think that this article is incredibly interesting. Similarly to Philip I was wondering how they accomplished this effect on such a large scale. Its definitely not a new idea for audience to be involved in this sort of way. I went to a Coldplay concert a few years ago and the audience was given little bracelets that had LED lights in them and at random times in the show they would turn off the stage lights and the whole audience was lit up. It was INSANE! So in that sense I am no longer quite as surprised with the result though I think it still made a cool effect.
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