Located on the campus of the University of North Carolina, the Carolina Basketball Museum originally opened in 2008 and chronicles the history of the UNC basketball program. Highlighting Carolina’s numerous NCAA and ACC Championships, along with the players, coaches, and staff members that made it all possible, the interactive museum recently underwent a renovation on the heels of its 7th National Championship. Working with the experiential brand specialists at Advent, the museum wanted to update their main video display that greets visitors as part of the branding refresh, utilizing a 2.8mm FLEXTour LED video solution from PixelFLEX and a custom content CMS.
“We had previously worked with the University of North Carolina on an update for the Smith Center locker room that went really well, so they asked us to come back and take a look at the Carolina Basketball Museum,” says Davy Fisher, Advent Design Principal.
One of the main displays that needed updating was an LCD projection system at the museum entrance—the first thing guests would see. The previous projection system proved difficult to format and never seemed to measure up to the task.
“The initial installation that we replaced was a strange, concave screen that had an image projection-mapped onto it, but it never really worked the way they wanted it to,” explained John Downie, VP of Digital Experience, Advent. “It’s a rather large space and the display is the first element you see when you walk in. With the original system, they found it hard to update and it required a lot of post-production to format correctly. Knowing this was an issue, we decided to give them an LED video solution that was easy-to-update in a 16:9 ratio, so they could easily drop in high-resolution, wide-screen footage without any post-production needed.”
Downie chose the high-definition and curve-able FLEXTour LED, which is designed for live entertainment productions; its unique rigging capabilities allow for traditional and off-set configurations. Each 500mmx1000mm tile is fully front-serviceable and its integrated climbing ladder allows for quick access.
The video panels were easily connected to a header bar, which hangs from the ceiling using aircraft cable. Measuring 16-feet wide by 9-feet tall, the system was quickly ready for content, driven by the proprietary Advent content management system.
“For the control, we are using our Advent web-based CMS that allows the client to quickly update content through the simple upload of a media file, while also giving them options for various modes of operation,” continued Downie. “During the build-out process, the first reaction upon turning it on was absolute amazement. With the previous projection image, the colors were never quite right, and it just didn’t look like a quality display. For that to be replaced with a beautiful, high-resolution, tight pixel-pitch FLEXTour LED screen, it really blew their minds.”