Spanish Football Club Celebrates Its Past With Projection-Filled Museum At Home Stadium

June 24, 2019 by Dave Haynes

The Spanish La Liga football team Athletic Bilbao celebrates more than a century of top-level competition in a museum on the grounds of San Mamés stadium, where it plays home games.

The museum in Bilbao has been equipped with more than 30 Christie laser projectors, using short throw lenses, to tell the club’s story through the years. While the team is not as celebrated as Barcelona and Real Madrid, it’s a big, popular club.

Says a press release from Christie:

Located in the stadium’s basement, the museum is divided into three distinct areas, differentiated by the team’s green, red and black colors. Visitors first come across a hall lined in metal where they can view visual projection explaining Athletic Club’s founding, showing Bilbao more than a century ago. Measuring 8 x 2 meters, the projection using six Christie Captiva projectors and the three GS Series projectors blending on the wall and floor to create an immersive environment.

Asier Arrate, director of the museum, explained why they chose laser projection technology: “At first, we were thinking about using lamp-based projectors but then we discovered that laser solutions give you much better benefits in terms of less down-time and less expensive running costs. In fact, Erabi prepared a simulation for us of when the projectors are up to 1,200 hours of use, which showed us that the laser light source would save us up to 15,000 Euros in replacing lamps and other consumables.”

As for Christie Captiva, Arrate pointed out that its ultra-short throw lens was crucial: “Thanks to it, the projector can be mounted at a very short distance from the screen or wall, either vertically or horizontally, which means that the public can view content without the appearance of bothersome shadows that interrupt the image. And on top of that they are extraordinarily quiet.”

The PR continues:

“Time Line” is a restored wooden stand from the old grounds where you can sit and watch a video showing the club’s 120 years of history; this 2 x 1.5 meter projection is screened on a high-contrast canvas tensed in a frame powered by a Christie Captiva. Another Christie Captiva is used in the “Member’s Corridor,” projecting the club’s logo onto a plaque with the names of all the members of the club throughout its history.

Another part of the attraction uses the Captiva projector with the touch option – which enables users to interact with the content – and a tactile infrared frame developed by Virtualware and Erabi to make the interactivity even more lifelike. The wall is coated in high-contrast paint to give the images even greater brightness and contrast.

Several companies were involved in the museum design, including Espai Visual in the museological and museographic development, Virtualware and Mediapro Exhibitions in the production of audiovisual content, Charmex in the supply of projection solutions, and Erabi in the integration and maintenance of all the audiovisual equipment.

Really nice. Short-throw lenses are really good these days, able to fill a wall space from remarkably close quarters. It also helps that a laser projector is going to run something like 10X as long as a lamp-based projector bulb. While projectors still have issues in areas like retail and airports that tend to have a lot of natural and artificial light, the subdued lighting of a museum works very well.

  1. Menu Boards says:

    That’s a must visit museum for the football followers. You’ll see the combination of Football history, Technology, & a great piece of work.

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