Posted by admin on Sep 08, 2021
Omnispace360 at Super Bowl LV in Tampa, Florida
This is the story of how we at Omnispace360, along with our partners at bluemedia, navigated creating the center piece entertainment for the first major event in the COVID-era.
January 24th our team all arrived at the Marriot hotel near the airport. I arrived in the lobby that evening after driving down from Atlanta and was greeted by our CEO Chris Lawes at the desk before meeting our systems engineer Tyer Allison and renowned Executive Producer Paul Whitney in the lobby. After a quick dinner we all dispersed to our rooms to recharge for the mad dash the next few days had in store to create the ultimate projection mapping experience for the NFL.
Just a few hours later we were all up and racing the sun over to our first job site, “The Treehouse” being erected at the north end of the Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park. The whole area looked like a music festival in the making, with all the roadie cases lined up on the ground waiting to be deployed. We convened with our newest engineer, Andrew Roman, who was the architect of the projector ensemble that was about to be assembled. He and Chris and Tyler began ironing out the details of how to effectively execute the spectacle that was to come. Across the park, through the thick fog, we could just barely make out what was to be our canvas: The Rivergate Tower.
Next, we scouted out what was to be the secondary site, the Embassy Suites in the heart of downtown. Atop the parking deck were two other scaffolding towers that were to be our bases of operations for the twin towers we would be projecting onto atop the hotel. Chris immediately noticed they needed to be more centered and properly braced an directed the builders on how to remedy the solution before it was too late.
When we returned to Rivergate we were greeted by the sun breaking through the clouds and the sound of power tools constructing the frame designed to angle the projectors into place. The telehandler was soon hoisting the cases containing the top-of-the-line Panasonic PT-RZ31KU 31k that were to be stacked on top of one another in two rows of ten.
Later that day the rest of our engineering team arrived. Misch Ionin and Eugene Gruzdev, experts in large scale projection blending, flew in from Ukraine to help bring yet another Super Bowl spectacle to life. They had previously worked on the Super Bowl shows in Atlanta, Miami, and Minneapolis. Over the next few nights they set about calibrating all twenty of the 31k projectors and began blending them into a single cohesive image.
January 28th was when all the hard work and fine tuning came together. After several long nights of preparation, it was time for our rehearsal to show the NFL. Our CEO Chris Lawes and the show’s Executive Producer Paul Whitney presented the NFL marketing team the variety of shows that Elena Deryusheva and the rest of the digital content team had been working tirelessly on creating. It was truly a sight to behold.
Everyone was thrilled to see thirty floors of the light-colored limestone Sykes building brilliantly lit up with the NFL’s marquee players towering over the Tampa skyline. The show was not over yet though, as we still had our engineers Tyler and Andrew preparing to reveal the second show over at the Embassy Suites building. We all raced down there and were greeted with some majestic, shimmering projection mapping atop the hotel.
Friday, January 29th is when the Rivergate Park opened to the public and the NFL kicked off the eagerly anticipated week of Super Bowl festivities.
It was a treat to see people coming together responsibly and enjoying the spectacle of the show we were projecting. From that night on Rivergate Tower quickly became the centerpiece of Super Bowl week throughout Tampa Bay.
platform to highlight the work that the health care heroes were doing in the middle of our show. Even Mr. Super Bowl MVP himself Tom Brady joined in to show his support!
The folks at the NFL called an audible on the show that weekend and asked us to find a way to honor the health care workers fighting on the frontlines amidst the pandemic that was still swirling around in a world of uncertainty. Twitter came on board and we utilized their
That Saturday, after leaving the projection shows in the trusted hands of our engineers, some members of team Omnispace360 took the opportunity to explore some of Tampa and check out the popular food hall a few miles up the river. Even from across the city, with the staggering number of lumens (600,000!) that we were using, the patrons of Armature Works were treated to a nice view of our Rivergate show.
Our CEO Chris Lawes and engineer Tyler Allison got to enjoy some local vegan fare from Dharma Southern Kitchen at Armature Works watching the local Tampa nightlife enjoy the fruits of our labor in the background.
People were enjoying the spectacular sights of our show from all over town!
After a week of festivities, the day of the big game finally came. The whole city was abuzz from the historic first ever host city making it all the way to the Super Bowl. Then come Sunday, things got even more historic. We quickly raced down to the Embassy Suites and recalibrated our show there with the new banners our content team had created in anticipation of the outcome. Tampa Bay had won the Super Bowl on their home turf!
While we were enjoying the sights of the streets erupting into a giant party all around our victory banners, there was no time to rest on our laurels. We made our way through the giant afterparty the whole city was turning into back to Rivergate tower to perform one last show on the limestone skyscraper. It was truly a spectacular end to an incredible show.
