July 10, 2024
3 min read
Ten seconds on the shot clock and the home team is down by three points. Tensions are high, and cheers from fans around the stadium make the energy feel palpable. When a coach calls a timeout, it’s up to the AV production team to keep the momentum rolling by delivering vivid, engaging fan experiences and visuals.
Pacers Sports & Entertainment understands how vital it is to keep fans entertained and locked in. To enhance fan experiences in Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the company partnered with Panasonic Connect to adopt new, scalable audiovisual solutions that enable staff to develop crowd-pleasing content in less time.
Gainbridge Fieldhouse is home to the Indiana Pacers NBA and Indiana Fever WNBA teams, and is also used for concerts, eSport tournaments, and events hosted by the city of Indianapolis. With so many different types of live experiences to support, Pacers Sports wanted to adopt a flexible, easy-to-use AV architecture that they could readily expand to meet future needs and growth opportunities. This installation also came 2 months ahead of the season opening that would culminate in the 2024 NAB All-Star Game, giving the team a tight timeline to learn how to use the new tools and develop new content.
“Gainbridge Fieldhouse is one of the busiest arenas in the country. With 18,000 seats available, we want to create experiences that keep visitors wanting to come back,” said Emily Wright, director of engineering at Pacers Sports. “We needed a solution that could deliver new and dynamic content to fans at a faster pace while future-proofing our workflows.”
After combining the previously segmented control rooms into one centralized room, Panasonic Connect installed seven new Panasonic AW-UE150 UHD 4K PTZ cameras, bringing the total number of PTZ cameras to 10, and the KAIROS live video production platform. KAIROS, a live production platform, digitizes all aspects of a broadcast program to give production crews easy-to-use tools for creating innovative digital content during gameplay, timeouts, and halftime. This includes layering images, videos, backgrounds, and compositions, so production crews can make and save templates that reduce development time during live events. Creating and displaying recurring video segments, like the Kiss Cam and celebrity lookalikes, becomes much faster and allows the crew to focus on other tasks.
To keep up with the ever-changing needs of the broadcast industry and fan expectations, KAIROS supports transitions from baseband to IP workflows. This eliminates dedicated hardware constraints and allows Pacer Sports to future-proof Gainbridge Fieldhouse, ensuring the solution can grow with the stadium and accommodate requests from Gainbridge Fieldhouse clients.
Along with installing the new solution, Panasonic Connect provided extensive staff training to help Pacers Sports feel confident in using KAIROS to its full capability. “Before switching to KAIROS, only two staff members knew how to develop halftime games,” said Emily Wright. “Now we have five people who can operate KAIROS. The Panasonic team held training sessions with the Pacers Sports staff to familiarize them with KAIROS so we could bring more fun, engaging games to life with fans while making sure events run smoothly.”
With a fully trained production crew and new AV solutions in their arsenal, Pacers Sports gave fans an All-Star experience jam-packed with funny games, vivid up-close shots, instant replays and more. Looking ahead, the production crew will leverage KAIROS and Panasonic’s PTZ cameras to transform in-stadium content, giving fans experiences that will be talked about long after the game is over.
For more information on Panasonic Connect’s partnership with Pacers Sports, visit: https://bit.ly/3VJ4XiJ
