Live From Final Four: U.S. Bank Stadium Delivers an In-Venue Show at a Unique - and Gigantic Scale

Live From Final Four: U.S. Bank Stadium Delivers an In-Venue Show at a Unique - and Gigantic Scale Temporary center-hung videoboard brings unique elements to this venue's ability to deliver an in-stadium show By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital

Sunday, April 7, 2019 - 11:00 am

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Still less than three years old, U.S. Bank Stadium has quickly become a favored home for some of sports' top events and has hosted everything from X Games to international soccer matches, and Super Bowl LII. No in-venue video production, however, may rival the unique nature that has come with this year's NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four.

Inside Minneapolis' U.S. Bank Stadium at the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four, there are three massive video fixtures to program with content, including two end zone flat screens and a center-hung erected special for this event.

There's already a tremendous amount of screen space to program and activate in this building with its pair of end zone boards that measure a hefty 68-ft. x 120-ft. and 50-ft. x 88-ft., respectively. But the NCAA has also added a gigantic center-hung videoboard, erected over the court in the center of the bowl that completely changes the look and feel of the video aspects of the stadium.

GoVision, a supplier of mobile LED units and event video screens, supplies the structure and spent a good couple of weeks to get it properly installed, safely rigged, and properly integrated with the in-house video infrastructure. It's this board that is proving to be the focal point during game play during the pair of Saturday semifinals and Monday's final.

In fact, according to Ryan Kehn, Creative Director at Van Wagner Sports & Entertainment the popular group brought in to run the in-venue entertainment shows at many neutral-site, championship events around the globe the standard boards in the building actually are forbidden to be used during game play, so as not to serve as a distraction to the players on the court.

The center-hung structure was erected and installed by GoVision, a supplier of mobile LED units and event video screens.

The videoboards that are here are beautiful and absolutely great, says Kehn. Unfortunately, during game play, there's some reflection issues in the backboards. We only want to affect the game positively! So the decision was made to put up a still graphic during game play. Let's let the players focus on basketball and not worry about them seeing themselves in the reflection 500 feet away. Football players have gotten used to using those boards to their advantage and it's just not regularly available in basketball at this point.

Van Wagner has brought in some of its most talented storytellers to this Final Four, including a longtime veteran of the industry Roddy White, who is serving as executive producer and calling the shots during live entertainment. White comes with a respected history of entertaining Atlanta Falcons fans inside the old Georgia Dome. He's joined by senior producer Fred Bowen, who oversees the staff in the control room and heads up coordination for highlight packages and graphics.

Van Wagner Sports & Entertainment creative director Ryan Kehn (left) helps build out a graphic to be used on one of the stadium's video screens during a break in the action.

In addition, as is the case at most events of this size, VWSE will call upon the people who know the host building best. In this case, that's a robust crew both from U.S. Bank Stadium and the Minnesota Vikings, the primary tenant of U.S. Bank Stadium. They will fill all of the key positions like camera operator, replay, graphics, and more.

Since opening its gates in the summer of 2016, yes, U.S. Bank Stadium has earned its place as one of the premier top flight venues in the entire country, but its also established itself as one of the best places for outside groups like VWSE and national broadcasters to come in and do a show. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone to not have a glowing word to say about working with the likes of Broadcast Operations Manager Tadd Wilson and Broadcast Operations Coordinator Justin Lange. Even Bryan Harper, VP, Content and Production, for the Minnesota Vikings stepped up for VWSE to loan some members of his Vikings Entertainment Network staff

The group here is fantastic, says Kehn. We could be doing underwater basket weaving here and it would be great because we'd get to work with them. They make us feel at home and take really good care of us. I mean, its butler-level status. They roll out the red carpet. We don't have to worry about anything from a technical standpoint.

Also, in a very cool staffing note, some young production talent got the chance to be part of this show, including Anne Woody, a junior at the University of Minnesota, who earned the tremendous opportunity to serve as the technical director for the in-stadium video board shows this weekend.

Huge GDP shout out to All-Star junior (!) @anne_woody, technical directing today's #FinalFour in-house broadcast for 72,000+ people at @usbankstadium. Unbelievable! #Gophers pic.twitter.com/UYnoxkc5qd

Gopher Digital Prod. (@GopherVideo) April 7, 2019

As for the cameras powering the show, the in-venue crew has five cameras of its own, including roving RFs for fan interaction shots. There's also 12 direct feeds to and from the CBS Sports/Turner Sports trucks in the production compound within the bowels of the stadium. VWSE will take some of those broadcast cameras to bolster their stock of available angles for replay. All in all it totals to about 15 cameras' worth of angles from which to build repays and packages.

Combining all of the prepackaged content, live angles, replays, graphics, and more, VWSE is able to put together an elite sho

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2019/04/07/live-from-final-four-u-s-bank-s...
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