ADI supplied a number of award-winning solutions to the illustrious World Gymnastics Championships Liverpool 2022 last year, which was later deemed the event that changed the landscape of Gymnastics competitions by FIG President Morinari Watanabe.
Held at the M&S Bank Arena, Liverpool, we worked collaboratively with the organising committee to turn their ideas into reality.
Read the case study below to discover how we managed it.
The brief
ADI were selected as the Official Event Presentation Provider for the 51st World Gymnastics Championships.
The local organising committee’s ambition was to bring a new level of technology, innovation and interactivity to the sport and deliver the best Championships there had ever been.
‘Welcome to our World’ was the creative theme, which focused on youth, new technology and edginess – and making the spectator a fundamental part of the event.
The Liverpool City Council were keen for the visitor experience to begin on arrival and for it to celebrate Merseyside’s proud musical heritage.
What we delivered
We brought skills in LED screens, AV production, creative content, interactive applications and sports presentation to elevate and enhance the Championships, helping revolutionise the audience experience, and in the words of the FIG President Morinari Watanabe, ‘turn gymnastics from sport into entertainment.’
While LED screens and sophisticated AV have been incorporated in high-level gymnastics competitions for years, it was our creative approach to its application and integration that transformed the M&S Bank Arena into a world-class competition area, and immersed audiences from the moment they arrived to the moment they left.
LED canvases were carefully designed for the event space and were used to create a showpiece athlete’s entrance, alongside installations along the judge’s tribunes and above the competition floor.
All digital displays were brought to life with vibrant, coordinated content, expertly operated by our on-site production teams and delivered via the 15km of fibre connectivity that we laid. With complimenting content for all screens at key event moments it allowed the event organiser to build an unprecedented atmosphere inside the stadia bowl and achieve ’Total Venue Takeover’, with synchronised messaging featuring across the entire Arena.
The production and delivery of specially shot video, hype VT’s and branded stings helped to educate, inform and entertain audiences, with custom lighting design and audio inside the arena achieving the event experience that the organising committee had envisioned.
We also conceptualised and produced daily Opening Ceremonies, with high-energy performances by local singer Pixey, alongside the management of host and presentation teams, athlete entrance sequences and podium ceremonies – each with their own unique AV and content production elements.
With 80% of the audience new to the sport, the screens and digital applications were a huge part of their introduction to international gymnastics, and the resulting entertainment experience. There was also a large proportion of young and family ticket-holders, so ADI designed light-hearted, easy to join interactive elements, including a customised QGlo light show mobile app. Each day, before the gymnasts took to the floor, the lights on the audiences’ smartphones would flash in time with music, which meant that the devices could be held aloft inside the arena to create a spectacular in-bowl atmosphere, with the integrated light capture technology all that was needed to deliver a moment of “hype”.
Also incorporated into the event was Piing’s multi-player mobile gaming, which allowed the audience to participate in a shared game on their smartphones during breaks in the competition schedule, without the need to download an app.
Audience accessibility was a fundamental part of the experience, and ADI partnered with British Sign Language to incorporate live signing on the huge cubic LED screen above the competition floor – the first time in the UK that this has been achieved for the duration of a live sports event.
What followed
Recognising expert AV production, our World Gymnastics delivery won the AV Production of the Year Award at the recent Event Production Awards 2023.
Renowned former gymnast Beth Tweddle MBE hailed the delivery of the Fan Zone, saying: “The Fan Zone in particular was incredible to be a part of, there was so much for kids to get involved in. For children who have never done gymnastics, it was an opportunity for them to have a go and wherever they live around the country, they can go home and find their local club.”
