Ascot Racecourse | Ascot, England

ASCOT RACECOURSE

Ascot, England

Images: Ascot Racecourse

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scot Racecourse’s latest piece of technology, launched in record time for this year’s Royal Ascot, was a collaboration project with Samsung and Digital Media Technologies, focused on delivering something unique to customers returning to their first full capacity Royal Ascot since 2019. Large screen displays have become part of the landscape at major sporting venues but the 14x5 metre LED unveiled at Royal Ascot 2022 was just a little different. It has been deliberately designed in portrait format to mirror the familiar screen of the ubiquitous smartphone, meaning that racegoers have an instant affinity with its design. The display has given the venue and its brand partners an unprecedented opportunity to enhance the race-going experience with relevant, upto-date and constantly changing content, proving so reliable that not a single frame was dropped during the entire five-day event. When Covid temporarily closed down sports and entertainment venues across the country, it gave Ascot Racecourse an unexpected opportunity to take a step back and assess what it really wanted to focus on for future events. Technology innovation was a key pillar of the resulting action plan. Ascot’s Head of Technology, George Vaughan, had previously worked with Samsung when he was Head of Innovation at the Rugby Football Union, so he reached out to the Samsung Innovations team to explore how the racecourse could create something truly innovative that would

really make a difference to the race day experience. “What always strikes me as being so unique to our brand is the behaviour of our customers when they enter the racecourse. Often dressed immaculately, the first thing they do upon arrival is not place a bet or buy a drink but take a photo and then post this up onto social media. Because they are with us for such a long space of time – often 6 or 7 hours – the social part of their day is often just as important as the racing.” The portrait aspect ratio was a carefully calculated decision, according to George: “We didn’t just want to put up another large screen for the sake of it, and a great deal of thought went into the positioning, aspect ratio and size.” “What we have is something not seen in many other venues in Europe or the US – a display that mimics the mobile handset. The result is an installation that brings a large but relatively invisible space to life through some very individual media. “The LED was completed in record time by a group of partners that exceeded all our expectations. One of the highlight comments that many staff and customers have made since we went live for Royal Ascot is that ‘It’s bright and crystal clear, engaging but in no way intrusive. The screen feels like it has always been there.’” The LED display is driven by Digital Media Technologies’ Samsung CanvasPro software platform, enabling advanced workflows incorporating broadcast and digital signage technologies. CanvasPro is responsible for all content playout and behind-the-scenes live ingest and integration, whilst centralising and providing real-time control over the Ventuz 3D playout engine. Combined with the simple and intuitive CanvasPro features for enhanced workflows, broadcast feed integration and scheduling, CanvasPro enabled the playout to be truly dynamic, reactive, relevant and ever-changing throughout the Royal Ascot event. All playout was at 60fps for the entire event, with not a single frame drop and 100% uptime. CanvasPro provided real-time dynamic and operator-controlled content navigation utilising a virtual camera for seamless 3D transitions. The camera was able to provide views from a total canvas resolution of 145 million

pixels which, if displayed at one time, would require a display size of 20,160 x 7,200 pixels. Using the latest generation Dell hardware with Nvidia GPUs, the content utilised ray tracing and advanced 3D lighting effects, permitting subtle features such as dynamic shadowing for all text and assets based the position of the sun, creating a truly pop-out dynamic 3D effect. In conjunction with the dynamic asset playout, live media and 3D camera features, this ensured that there were no repetitive content loops, and that key messaging was weighted appropriately to deliver the right messaging at the right time. The content displayed was ingested, integrated and/or synchronised with all key departments and focus areas for the event, including racing, operations, public transport, partners and sponsors, marketing, health and safety, experiential, social media, security, and food and beverage. The CanvasPro platform is highly flexible, which proved invaluable when key broadcast partner Sky Sports requested to broadcast its live output via the display just one day before the start of Royal Ascot, which was not initially planned for. Due to circumstances beyond everyone’s control, the final timelines for the project presented a huge challenge, with the entire end-to-end solution being designed, installed and fully operational within two months from getting the final go ahead, and with on-site build works completed within three weeks in collaboration with LED installer EDS and Ascot Racecourse. The positioning and sheer scale of the LED screen make it an instant engagement piece, distinguished by particularly innovation with the portrait aspect ratio. Ascot is a lifestyle brand, and because so many aspects of the modern customer’s engagement with the world now take place through a smartphone, the racecourse wanted to create a familiar experience through a large screen that mirrored a phone’s portrait format. Introducing the portrait style LED display onto Samsung’s Core 4 pillar allows their customers to communicate in a familiar, smartphone aspect ratio perspective, and challenges partners and sponsors to create something unique and exciting when showcasing their respective brands. The integration of relevant, real-time data and messaging, with content designs that updated as the day passed, was also something truly innovative. Being able to live stream in video feeds from brand ambassadors using Samsung mobile phones was a great feature of the solution. “This installation represents another step forward as we continue with our Smart City initiatives and along with the exciting work we are planning with Samsung extends to other lifestyle brands such as Amazon, Apple and Google and demonstrates our commitment to put customer service at the heart of everything we do from a technology standpoint,” concluded George.