Case Study: TD Garden Evolves Fan Experience With Cutting-Edge Display Immersion

Today’s sports enthusiasts are presented with a plethora of options in regard to how they experience an event. For a sports and entertainment arena such as TD Garden, it is imperative that as innovations in technology take place, they follow alongside to offer the best experience to their visitors. TD Garden set out to break the boundaries of a typical viewing experience, and provide an immersive experience to every visitor. They took control of their ability to reconstruct the entertainment experience being offered to their visitors by utilizing cutting-edge LED technology. The outcome presented a showcase of today’s most evolutionary LED technology, and rebranded the entire experience at the arena.

As the largest sports and entertainment arena in New England, and home to the NHL’s Boston Bruins and the NBA’s Boston Celtics franchises, TD Garden has a reputation of excellence to uphold.

TD Garden held a 10,000 square foot in-stadium themed bar and restaurant ripe for renovation. The environment at the time could not easily support the versatility of events hosted by the arena. This is mainly due to various teams and entertainment content needing to be displayed, as determined by the event being held.

The Team Licensed Merchandise store also proved to be out date and in need of a technology refresh. As the home to two major franchises, they needed to offer an exciting and unique store experience to visitors.

The arena also held an opportunity in regards to one of their main internal concourses, which held advertising potential due to the large traffic volume. Adding unique digital displays would exploit an opportunity of an increased revenue stream along with the capability of displaying evolving wayfinding and event information. However, the space in need of renovation had significant size and layout restrictions, which made The TD Garden’s vision difficult to implement.

“We wanted to create the best fan experience possible by bringing our history and heritage to life in a way that was immersive, yet not overwhelming,” says Amy Latimer, President, TD Garden. “Our fans have given us so much over the years. We wanted to create a special experience for them to celebrate our 20th anniversary at The TD Garden.”

Integrating cutting edge brand visualization solutions with compelling content is an essential component in delivering engaging brand experiences for customers in sports, entertainment, education, and business verticals. The leadership team at The TD Garden in Boston, along with their strategic partners, NanoLumens, Rosetti Architects and HB Communications implemented world-class digital display solutions in key locations throughout the facility.

“Our collective objectives were to create an immersive brand storytelling experience for both Bruins and Celtics fans,” says Tony Reiner, Design Lead, Rossetti Architects. “Amy Latimer told our team: ‘I want to give back to the fans the history, legacy, and rich heritage of these two franchises and thank fans for their support and our collective pride.’ To do this, we had to layer in experiences relevant to each brand franchise.”

LED wayfinding displays are redefining the experience of The TD Garden’s internal concourses. They now utilize eye-catching displays to marry advertising and wayfinding seamlessly. The displays were designed custom to the many restrictions of the space. Masses of visitors can now navigate with ease through the concourses thanks to the newly implemented, versatile Nixel Series LED technology. This digital signage offers an interactive and fresh perspective on advertisement and opens a new stream of revenue for The TD Garden. The wayfinding displays have been placed strategically throughout the stadium, offering visual touchpoints in stratified zones to customize advertising for specific audiences, as well as ease directions to concession areas or even The Team Licensed Merchandise store.

The in-stadium themed bar and restaurant was in need of a WOW factor, and NanoLumens was ready for the challenge. The arena held a vision to transform this space to deliver an exciting new immersive fan experience that had the flexibility to showcase various teams and entertainment content seamlessly. This transformation would provide the flexibility necessary to meet the TD Garden’s demand.

Next was to build a brand new world-class experiential Pro Shop to replace an outdated Team Licensed Merchandise store. This included state-of-the-art LED technology with sharp and engaging material. The Nixel Series displays were chosen to amaze fans with curved features while enriching the environment in order to boost sales of both Bruins and Celtics licensed merchandise.

NanoLumens, along with its partners, translated the experience into an iconic and immersive experience. The NanoLumens team implemented fully-transparent, unique, NanoClear displays to simulate all of the historic banners from inside the arena. NanoClear utilizes state-of-the-art, nano-optical particle diffusion, which allows objects to seamlessly float in space. The displays can accept input from nearly any device or content management system to produce specific messaging on the clear display. It is extremely slim and ultra-lightweight.

“Clients are asking for their brand dreams and possibilities to be enabled. What Amy Latimer challenged us to think about is very typical of what our smartest clients are asking for today. They want bleeding edge technology and they are demanding it faster,” says Simon Davis, VP, North East, HB Communications

The TD Garden is a vision that became reality. Fans can now look forward to an entertainment experience that will take their breath away. Visitors can now recognize The TD Garden as an icon, with state-of-the-art technology and eye catching visuals at every corner.

Not only has the fan experience been propelled to a new level, but the arena may now look forward to a new revenue stream brought about by the versatility of advertising made possible by the dynamic Nixel Series displays brought by NanoLumens. The environment has been enriched beyond the initial expectations of the team, and visitors are finding themselves drawn in by these interactive displays and the overall environment.

Visuals are sharper than ever at The TD Garden, and their brand is compelling in a new way. Fans will find that holding loyalty toward the arena as their main sports and entertainment venue will not be difficult, as experience presented is one of a lifetime.

“My team and I had dreams and didn’t even know if it was possible to create what we wanted to do until we learned about NanoLumens, they enabled our dreams. They exceeded our dreams,” says Latimer. “NanoLumens is such a WOW way to deliver content and create an experience. They came through with ‘Here’s how we can deliver this.’ They exceeded our expectations for what we thought we could do versus what they knew we could do. They ratcheted up the idea and made what many thought was impossible … possible. NanoLumens is like digital art … it is there and is supportive, but it doesn’t take over, it doesn’t overwhelm. It is a WOW factor. To deliver this content is so exciting for us. This is art … people get pleasure from this.”