The Miami Dolphins install an immersive multimedia wall at Sun Life Stadium

Christie's MicroTiles and The BuzzWall technology allows the Miami Dolphins to create a high-visual impact wall that combines interactivity, text messaging, live video streaming and reproduction of sponsor company brands. The interactive video wall, integrated by Arsenal Media and Float4 Interactive, combines a haphazard array of 41 Christie MicroTiles modular display cubes, live and pre-recorded video content, touch sensors, messaging applications and large format graphics.

Miami Dolphins fans are the first followers of a professional team to enjoy an extraordinary interactive multimedia display from Christie MicroTiles, which is now installed in the center stand of Sun Life Stadium.

The Dolphins interactive video wall combines a haphazard array of 41 Christie MicroTiles modular display cubes, live and pre-recorded video content, touch sensors, messaging applications and large format graphics, all forming a massive wall more than seven feet high for fans to use and enjoy.

Adapted to the team's marketing, media and sponsorship plans, the multimedia screen incorporates four content areas with which to inform and entertain the fans. Content includes interactive images of key moments in team history, live game videos, replays and highlights, instant text-based polls, photo galleries, and information on stadium amenities and local programs.

The corporate sponsorships have been designed to be directly integrated into much of the Dolphins interactive video wall content, making the brands part of the fan experience. For example, fans have fun pushing aside virtual bubbles with sponsor logos, inserted between requested images of Dolphins highlights, while dolphins swim in a virtual water tank created from Christie MicroTiles seamless display cubes.

Magnetism towards fans

The Dolphins interactive wall is a customized version of The BuzzWall, a video wall created by Christi and the Montreal company Arsenal Media, at the forefront of the international market for digital media for unique applications.

Tery Howard, vice president and chief technology officer of the Miami Dolphins, has noted that this wall reflects "transformational technology that will contribute to improving the quality of the stadium experience. The wall offers new and more numerous marketing opportunities to the Dolphins' sponsoring companies, allowing them to establish affinities with fans through dynamic, fun, timely and contextually adapted content."

"Elements like The BuzzWall are the best example that fans can go to the stadium one day to see the University of Miami (UM) team to enjoy a game with the UM brand clearly visible, and the next day to a Miami Dolphins game where the brand will have been replaced without any problem. The ability to offer a fully integrated experience is of utmost importance to those who rent our facilities, our marketing partners, our guests and ourselves. Hence the attraction to technologies like Christie's MicroTiles”, he added.

“The reaction from the fans has been very positive, and many of its members, in addition to being attracted to the video wall, are encouraged to play with the applications,” acknowledged Denys Lavigne, president of Arsenal Media. "The wall shows what digital signage is capable of—an application completely conceived for the space—and its many business and income opportunities. It is not something that you have in front of you and that you look at in passing, but rather a more intimate experience. The wall creates a relationship and generates a high between the fans, the team and the sponsors. What I liked most is the magnetism that the video wall exerts on people of all generations," he added.

Another Montreal company, Float4 Interactive, specializing in using sensors and software to create interactions that are always one step ahead of standard touch applications, was responsible for developing the BuzzWall's immersive touch features. For its part, Txtstation Global Mobile Marketing, from Austin (Texas), was responsible for providing the wall with the necessary functions to conduct real-time surveys among fans by sending simple text messages.