Cleveland Sports Fans Get Amped For Games Walking Through LED Power Portal

August 20, 2021 by Dave Haynes

Cleveland sports fans will know about the Power Portal LED tunnel at the city’s main sports arena, but it is new to me – and likely many digital signage people.

Lit up two years ago, it is one of the main entry passageways into the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, home of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. The tunnel has a curved side walls and ceiling canopy LED display with 25 million pixels. Backed by pro audio, the idea is to amp up fans as they come in for games or other events.

Here’s how it is described by Met Interactive, one of the companies behind the project:

As a guest enters the arena, they walk through a tunnel known as the Power Portal, a complex system of advanced sound technology and a massive 25 million pixel screen capable of producing 8k content. The sound system is capable of producing audio that is unique to the location in the Power Portal, matching up with the video that is playing nearby for a truly immersive experience. Content for this spectacle of engineering can take 20 or more hours to render, which speaks to the quality and the capabilities of this kind of system.

“The Power Portal is a first-of-its-kind seamless DVLED tunnel experience engineered by ANC, coupled with a state-of-the-art surround sound system called Soundscape, engineered by Metropolitan Interactive, featuring D&B Audiotechnik hardware,” said Mike Conley, Cleveland Cavaliers and Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse SVP & Chief Information Officer. “The two experiences combined welcome our fans and guests as they enter through the Sherwin-Williams entrance to the Fieldhouse.”

” It’s already a must-visit spot and has become a staple for selfies and videos posted to social media. We’ve only scratched the surface on the Portal’s capabilities and are experimenting with piping real-time data into the visual experience, further personalizing a fan’s experience as they navigate from the atrium to the concourse and back.”

Very impressive, though the old ops guy in me worries about the state of those LEDs as fans stream by. There are rails along the bottom that will stop carts and other things from bumping the side walls, but you’d need much more to protect against people running their hands along the display, or giving them a good whack if the Cavs lost or their fave pro wrestler lost.

UK-based DigiLED says it was also on the job, presumably for its LED cabinets.