Founded in 1958, the mission of the Fresno County Athletic Hall of Fame (FCAHOF) is to honor and remember the past accomplishments of great Fresno County (Calif.) athletes and to inspire youth to become all they can be in their lives. Every year more athletes are inducted into the FCAHOF, and while over 400 individuals and teams have been added since its inception, the FCAHOF traditionally has never had a physical location to call home. That changed when the FCAHOF partnered with Solutions by Design, Fresno State University and Fresno County Schools to create a permanent site inside the Save Mart Center at Fresno State, where the men’s and women's basketball teams play their home games. The new exhibit, located in a 5,000-square-foot wing of the arena, was designed by Fresno-based Solutions By Design and features team sports banners, memorabilia cases and the latest in interactive and digital display technologies.
“Fresno County has a really proud sports tradition, and the board of the Hall of Fame was intent on creating something special,” said Solutions By Design President William Poss. “They approached us to design an environment that would honor this legacy of great athletes.”
“Those that have gone before, their legacies are kept alive through this technology.” — Walter Byrd, former President, Fresno County Athletic Hall of Fame.
“The core objective of this project is to drive home character, accomplishment and hard work through stories and messaging.” — William Poss, President, Solutions by Design
Reaching younger audiences through stories underlying the achievements of great Fresno County athletes is an inspirational message for Fresno County youth that is meant to empower them to strive for their goals and realize greatness in their own way. This is where interactive storytelling with the Clarity Matrix MultiTouch video wall plays a key role. Users who engage with the Clarity Matrix MultiTouch video wall can select a sports category and view athlete profiles that include bios, photo galleries, videos and stories that capture their achievements, challenges and unique journeys. The 55-inch Clarity Matrix touch displays on either side of the video wall feature similar content and stories on past Fresno County Olympians and FCAHOF sponsors, including tribute videos honoring veterans. “The core objective of this project is to drive home character, accomplishment and hard work through stories and messaging,” Poss said. “It’s very much rooted in incentivizing kids to become more than what they might think they can become.”
The vision for the new FACHOF was to create a place for youth to learn about the Hall of Fame athletes. The founders of this organization had a dream that one day they would have a location in the Fresno community for people to actually see these athletes and hear their stories. More than the awards and accolades, the important thing is the character of these people. The interactive technology provides the opportunity for students to listen to interviews and experience the athletes in their own voice.
Interactive Video Wall
The large Video Wall is a primary display. Providing access to 4 quests simultaneously, this is the most popular display at the Hall of Fame. We created a screensaver along with short looping sponsor videos.
There are 4 CTAs (Call to Action Buttons) that appear on the screen. Once activated a dynamic background appears with a radial dial menu.
Overhead Truss
A large truss structure was fabricated to support 19 55” displays. Looping content of featured athletes and key sponsor videos spin and rotate.
Sports Category Wall
We call this a Sport Category Wall. Primary sports such as Football, Baseball, Basketball and those superstars are loping here. We also included video with shoutouts from national sports heroes such as Derek Carr.
Sports Story Kiosks
We designed and built 8 vertical wall kiosks featuring interactive stories of various notable athletes. Each tells their story and the challenges that they underwent to achieve success.
Floor Kiosks
Eight kiosks contain all of the content for over 300 athletes.
Sponsor Wall
A sponsor wall with placards and looping video for key sponsors was designed to acknowledge community support.
Historic Timeline Soffit Mural
This stretches the entire perimeter of the exhibit space.
About the Casework and Hardware
Our display solutions highlight the array of digital technologies featured in the new dynamic FCAHOF. These include:
- An overhead, 33-foot-diameter halo truss system supporting 19 side-by-side 46- inch LCD Video Wall System displays with action graphics. he halo truss installation—a key focal point of the space—is configured to show streaming content that includes action graphics, photos and statistics of athletes and coaches enshrined into the FCAHOF.
- A nearly 16-foot-long, 7-foot-high interactive MultiTouch LCD Video Wall System in a 4x3 configuration. The MultiTouch LCD Video Wall System offers 32 simultaneous touch points, enabling multiple users to interact delivering a superior touch experience, providing pin-point accuracy to prevent false touch points. Flanking the MultiTouch video wall on both sides are 55-inch LCD displays in portrait orientation. The Video Wall System is a mission-critical, ultra-narrow bezel LCD video wall system with off-board video controller and powerful processing.
- A 12-foot-long, 4.5-foot-high Video Wall in a 3x2 configuration. The Sports Category LCD video wall displays deliver a feature-rich, ENERGY STAR® Certified solution for high ambient light applications. Featuring always-on reliability. These displays are designed for continuous operation and deliver exceptional performance day and night.
- A 55-inch LCD video wall integrated with a donor wall exhibit, named the Sports Category Wall—is designed to display motion graphics with content organized to feature superstar athletes from a variety of sports categories.
- 9 32” interactive wall mount kiosks were installed with custom casework for selected inductee interviews as they tell their stories and what it takes to be successful.
- 6 Floor mounted kiosks of 32” and 43” interactive displays were also installed to round out the experience.
A local server system and gaming engine server/ processor was installed to drive the interactive Video Wall. Fiber lines were run to the remote IDF for web access.
There are over 60 computer processors installed in this project.
Casework was designed and fabricated to house the various displays.