VWSE to Use XPression at the US Bank Stadium for Fan Engagement During NFL’s Championship Game

US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, MN is home to the NFL Minnesota Vikings and this year will be hosting the NFL’s championship game. Van Wagner Sports and Entertainment is responsible for producing the in-venue experience for the NFL to create the best in fan engagement in the venue. To accomplish this VWSE will once again be using Ross Video’s XPression real-time motion graphics engines to get fans up out of their seats and cheering for their favorite team.

In addition to the existing installation of Ross Video’s XPression hardware in US Bank stadium, there will be additional XPression engines brought in to supplement configurations ranging from standard insert graphics to filling multi-monitor displays using Ross Video’s multi-engine synchronization software; XPression Tessera. Visualization of the NFL’s Next Gen Stats Data will also be accomplished in the stadium using XPression engines and the XPression DataLinq™ software.

“Pro football fans have high expectations for the teams, players and even the venue itself as they sit in those seats. Fans attending the game expect to see the same viewing experience they get at home.”, says Ryan Kehn, Creative Director for Van Wagner Sports and Entertainment. “Working with Ross Video XPression engines has allowed VWSE to meet the demand for eye-catching content and to match the coveted TV look, it has helped drive how we display statistics for fans in the stadium.”

“For us, using XPression is based largely on the ease of use for our team.” Kehn continues. “For an event this big, we art direct the content by starting on the designs internally. Then we pass along the project to Ross Video’s Rocket Surgery creative services team to give some things that real top-notch polished look. We can also get in there and create some very dynamic content on our own. For some smaller shows, we will do it all on our own. Otherwise we create the basics and can hand off shells to the operator in the field and tell them to fill in the package and build it out. Over the past few years, the XPression user market has blown-up, so it isn’t difficult to find XPression operators.”

“This is our second year in a row using XPression, exclusively for our graphic display of stats for this event, but I have been using XPression since 2013.” declares Kehn, “Before that, we would basically use whatever the house system was. That presents a whole host of challenges, as you can imagine. You have to adapt your show to do only whatever that system was capable of. As the market for big screen presentations and video board production has evolved, so has the need to provide more dynamic content. Sometimes VWSE has to come into a venue and supplement the house equipment with something like XPression.”

“Last year, we experimented with the NFL’s Next Gen Stats Data in our big board presentation, and this year, augmented reality is the next logical progression for us. Augmented reality work is new to VWSE, but the whole industry is moving towards AR. That will be a big part of this year’s data.”