Castrol Performance Pitch - Day Three/Four and Five

Well the daily thing didn't quite work out now did it, so here's a summary…

By the end of day three we had a pitch including hoardings and a net, a big screen that works, a reception area, a TRACAB studio and a nearly complete changing room…



Finishing the pitch was made a little more complicated by the fact that we had to pick up half a tonne of sand to level out some of the lumps. We managed to find something appropriate from the DIY store on the way to site on Day 4, the only problem being that we had to get all the sand and four of us into an Opel Zafira!

The TRACAB team responsible for the tracking system and screen content arrived on day three with an incredible 12 people (more than set and AV conbined!) and set to working filling up their office with more computer hardware than NASA.


The good folks from GTMS powered on with the interior through day four - hanging the casement ceiling and cladding the second changing room, the tunnel and the players lounge. With Ben and James working through the night to get everything finished.

Meaning day five was all about snags, tweaks and Matt conducting staff training sessions while the finishing touches where being made around a bemused group of referees, security staff and hosts.


The last big job on day five was the installation of the large banner across the screen hoarding. We had decided to get this produced in a single piece to avoid the problem of joins and seams, the only downside being that if everything wasn't exactly as drawn we'd be in a bit of trouble. Thankfully it fitted pretty much perfectly (40 mm out over 18m isn't bad!) and bar one frightening moment with the German translation it finishes things off a treat.

Once we'd assembled a raft of ikea furniture, filled many bin liners full of rubbish and shocked the life out of the two cleaners who arrived at 06:00 on Friday to find a sawdust strewn structure in desperate need of a hoover things were pretty much completed.


All in all a pretty typical week on site, lots of hard work, some late nights and early mornings, much laughter, but mostly it's all about everyone pulling together to make sure it gets finished on time to the highests standard possible.

Euro 2008 Fan Zone

I'm spending this week in Vienna at the Fan Zone while the Castrol Performance Pitch is being built ahead of the EURO 2008 tournament. Kempster have looked after all the project management and we're responsible for the design elements.


The pitch gives guests the opportunity to play a 10 minute 5-a-side game. During the game they are monitored by a remarkable piece of technology that will give them cold hard facts relating to their performance - including average speed, distance covered, percentage of time running, walking and sprinting, the number of goals/saves they made and also their position on the pitch over the entire game as a 'heatmap'.


All this information is made available to players online after the game in the form of a personalised player card. The card also contains an overall score that will rank their performance against all others who participate.


I thought I'd try and post a daily record of the site as it takes shape. First picture will be of an empty site at some ungodly hour tomorrow...