Sports Venue

One-button game-day takeovers at Principality Stadium

Automating game-day moments at scale

Triggering venue-wide visuals, data, and graphics with a single workflow.
Introduction

Wales’ home of big moments

The Principality Stadium, located in the city of Cardiff, is the national stadium of Wales and home to the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU).

Having first opened its doors in 1999 for the Rugby World Cup Finals, the previously named Millennium Stadium seats 74,500 and was the first multi-purpose sports and entertainment venue in the United Kingdom to be built with a fully retractable roof.

The challenge

Preparing for the return of fans

Since hosting the Rugby World Cup Finals in 1999, the Principality Stadium has gone on to stage several high-profile events, including major concerts, the UEFA Champions League Final, the FA Cup, the League Cup Final, and the Speedway Grand Prix of Great Britain.

The goal of the venue’s ownership has been to continue to attract major international sporting events, and in the fall of 2021, the Principality was set to host several high profile fixtures as part of the Autumn Nations Rugby Series.

With another major international sporting event on the calendar and with public health restrictions beginning to ease across the United Kingdom, the time was right to upgrade their in-venue production system and welcome back fans to the venue for the first time in 18 months with an unforgettable fan experience.

The solution

Synchronized control, simplified

The Principality Stadium team tasked PMY Group to manage the in-venue technology upgrade project at the Principality Stadium and make the stadium UHD capable. With countless stadium projects completed in North America and a proven track record of success, PMY Group immediately reached out to the Ross Sports & Live Events group to come up with a plan.

When presented with the Ross Unified Control Solution, PMY Group and the Principality Stadium immediately recognized the creative, technical, and business benefits of integrating the production control room technology with the LED content management system.

Specifically, by tying these systems together through the power of the DashBoard venue control software, in venue operators would be able to trigger fully synchronized events and graphics across all in-venue displays with the press of a button.

The impact

Bigger moments, instantly delivered

The first match at the Principality with the return of fans offered a thrilling tie between the Welsh Rugby Union and the legendary New Zealand All-Blacks. For such a highly anticipated fixture, the Principality team ratcheted up their game-day presentation with the support of Ross Video’s Creative Services team, Rocket Surgery.

With Rocket Surgery’s designs, the in-house production team wowed the audience with compelling full-screen visuals after every try and conversion. Fans were drawn deeper into the game throughout the 90 minutes thanks to Rocket Surgery’s full suite of dynamic visuals, including score-bugs, match timing, team line-ups, statistic reports, and team entrance hype sequences.

Another impact of the Ross Unified Control Solution is its ability to connect with third-party data providers to tell an even more compelling story to fans in the stadium. Integrations with Swiss Timing, Opta / Stats Perform, and the IPTV systems at the Principality meant that the production team could publish important match data in real-time across a variety of screens.

The products and services

Ross Video solutions in the production control room include:

Rocket Surgery

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Carbonite Ultra

Compact HD/UHD Production Switcher

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Ultrix Family

Ultrix

Hyperconverged Routing & Processing

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Ultritouch

Touchscreen System Control Panel

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XPression

Real-Time Motion Graphics Platform

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Tessera

Multi-Screen Real-Time Graphics Control

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PowerPlay

Centralized Event Control System

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openGear Modular

Open-architecture, modular system for diverse applications

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Rio Replay

Live Replay System

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EVO Signature Series

High-Performance Shared Storage

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Inception News

Multi-Platform Newsroom System

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DashBoard

Unified Production Control Software

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