Opened in September of 2024, the new SAP Garden in Munich is an enormous multifunctional sports venue spanning more than 530,000 square feet. It is home to both the EHC Red Bull München Hockey and FC Bayern München Basketball teams. Designed to enhance the fan experience through the implementation of innovative and, most importantly, interactive technology. To achieve this, bright! studios leant on SP software from Stage Precision to develop a workflow that enables tracking data to be transformed into engaging visual content for real-time gaming and audience participation, bringing to life Red Bull’s innovative concept of a new spectator experience.
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bright! became involved in the project following a recommendation. “The goal was to make the arena a kind of interactive playground, a unique vision that we were excited to be involved in,” explained Leon Herche, creative producer at bright! “They wanted to implement technology that would allow the spectators of hockey or basketball games to be actively involved in the experience of watching a match.” bright! required a workflow solution to unify data tracking, content and lighting and, in turn, build a series of interactive games and ‘events’. This level of audience participation would see the SAP Garden step into a new era of sports entertainment.
To make this vision a reality, bright! gathered tracking data, video content, and lighting together into a workflow that could handle the complexities of live sport and reliably deliver believable and accurate interactive content. Central to this workflow is SP by Stage Precision, which acts as the core control platform for all interactivity.
The system relies on tracking data from UWB chips built into the players' clothing, hockey pucks, or basketballs. This data is then processed in SP, which smooths and refines it, before sending commands and tracking data to ioversal Vertex media servers, Unreal Engine and the lighting console to trigger animations and lighting effects.
Watch how it looks below.
