Squash goes interactive with Aerva

October 25, 2010 by Dave Haynes

Boston-based Aerva does a nice newsletter and the latest one in my Inbox has a piece about the program it put together last month at the city’s historic Symphony Hall – the World Squash Champions Challenge.

Four of the top squash players in the world played on a state-of-the-art glass court inside the symphone, in front of the stage.

Aerva technology enabled the audience to participate in the event by sending in their photos, text messages and poll choices via SMS. Several large digital displays prominently featured Aerva’s suite of interactive widgets: Pic2Screen, Text2Screen, and Poll2Screen as well as sponsorship content. Aerva Twitter widget pulled the most up to date messages with #squashshowdown in it.

Sponsors enjoyed complimentary courtside, fine dining (Pops-style) while ticket holders gazed down on all the world class action from the Hall’s famous balconies. The evening’s fast-paced format ensures an action-packed experience as all players competed twice in a mini-tournament featuring shortened game scoring and shootout tiebreakers.

The single-game, bronze exhibition match introduced the evening’s guests to the first-ever “So, You Think You Can Ref?” mobile interactivity model. Each player was allowed two lifelines where they can ask the audience to use Aerva Poll2Screen to vote on whether they agree or disagree with the ref’s call.

The newsletter goes on to say the crowd … was captivated by the matches and sent in their comments to the digital screens using their cell phones and Aerva Text2Screen. One squash fan texted in, “if you thought THAT was contact, you haven’t played at the BRC!” People were joining the ongoing conversations on the screens.

There’s a video clip in the study that you can watch, but it did not include embed code, so you will have to go there for a lookee.