Bannister Lake's Chameleon Plays Vital Role At US Open

Bannister Lake's powerful data engine, Chameleon, played a vital role at this year's US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center (NTC) in Flushing Meadows, New York.

It served as the real-time data management solution for multiple data feeds from a diverse set of sources. Chameleon was used to reformat, filter, moderate and distribute data and graphics to dozens of various-shaped digital signs throughout the NTC.

Bannister Lake was instrumental in devising the workflows and processes that handled over 250,000 XML files corresponding to the participation of more than 1,000 players playing hundreds of matches. The complexity of the project was compounded by Chameleon also taking on responsibility for managing other data sources including weather, event news, social media, schedules, headshots, scores, set winners, standings and other tournament related data. Players' personal biographical data such as place of birth, height, weight, handed, and other information was also included.

"We were confident Chameleon could manage the complexity of the US Open project, delivering a powerful data aggregation engine for any data type," said Georg Hentsch, president of Bannister Lake. "The Bannister Lake team was able to pull off this event under extreme time constraints, and I couldn't be prouder of their hard work."

"Our extensive work in the broadcast sports market and more recently in eSports prepared us for the production challenges of the US Open," said Alain Savoie, creative and technical director, Bannister Lake. "Chameleon has powered a variety of event-based productions, that typically include hundreds of matches played over a short amount of time with a large number of players. So, we were more than ready."

Bannister Lake's unique workflow was built around leveraging the single match ID identifier that was used to drive all the data associated with a particular match. Chameleon was then able to use automation to populate the various graphics templates and tickers that were in turn distributed to graphics engines and to the screens throughout the facility. In total 15 output channels, displaying 15 different screen layout styles simultaneously, were utilized. In addition, 11 tickers running different content on different layouts were also used.

In addition to Chameleon, Bannister Lake provided a complete cloud-based backup system and unique Community data service. Community allowed editorial and production teams at the US Open to contribute news and essential information to the hundreds of thousands of tennis fans that attended the event.

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