The American Esports Experience - Pre-Vis
Currently working on an experience project for American Esports for their exhibition at the Hula Bowl in January.
Originally, they were supposed to be the only occupants for the room. A room with dated wanes coating and wall fixtures and a low budget to pull off something that would look spectacular broadcast on CBS sports.
Working with a low budget scares a lot of designers. I decided to build a room - within - a - room and encapsulate the gaming stations, phone charging areas with Nintendo switches (for leisure gamers) a space for presentation via an Elo touch screen and a hemisphere of projection to create an atmosphere, capture attention, and provide diffuse lighting for streamers and at the opposite end, plexi coated with a projection film so you would see both the game and the gamers - all suspended from 2 concentric rings of circular trussing and using projectors with short throw periscope modifications.
We then were told that the same room would have to be turned around for an awards dinner on the last night. So, instead of enclosing the circle, I took off the front half with the plexi and moved the plexi inside the arc and moved two projectors on the plan to use as holograms and tell a story that gaming is for everyone using custom photography and typography.
Then, the rest of the 7,076 square feet becomes a lounge with the wanes coating relit with blue LEDs and washed with the company logo, the hula bowl logo and sporadic use of hibiscus gobos to create visual texture and ambient light.
The day of the awards banquet, the gaming stations go away, and the hemisphere of projection will stay, lights re-aimed to create enough foot candles of light for broadcast and a stage setup inside the hemisphere to use the projected arc as a backdrop.
The project went from room - within - a - room to a shared space gracefully but I kept the integrity of the project intent from concept to concept and am currently in the pre-vis stages with PRG to get specs and what I need to design the projected content.
More images to come as the project continues.
