Augmented Reality dancing at Monte Casino for MTN Festival

For 2 years running we got to assist with the MTN sponsored Festival at Montecasino. Year one we did this really innovative and cool application, using a fairly new technology at the time, called Augmented Reality.

Essentially the Augmented Reality technology takes live video and augments the real life image with overlayed graphics and 3D elements, as though the 2 were combined. In this case we created an application that would essentially teach the viewing audience how to dance to one of 3 well-known tracks at the time, namely: D'Banj's hit track "Oliver Twist", Nicki Minaj's "Starships" or LMFAO's "Sexy and I know it", selected due to their popularity on the MTN Play Store at the time, which was the reason we decided to do this type of engagement for the Festival.

The experience for the visitor went as follows: a guest would stand on a floor printed vinyl placed at the venue in front of a 3-over-3 video wall screen that said: "Stand Here" which was supported with similar on screen graphics with the same message. The application would then run a count down to begin. Thereafter 4 dancer's appeared on the screen and the track would begin to play - we would select the track based on the demographic of the person engaging with the screen and change it up so the content did not become stale. The dancers would then perform the choreographed piece, showing you how to do a really cool dance to that particular track. The placement of the dancers with the real life feed makes it look like the dancers are standing right there next to you, bringing you as the participant into the performance.

We included effects and overlays to make the activation more engaging and visual, along with 'sound-to-light' lighting effects to further enhance the experience.

We provided the screen and built the unit that housed the screen, along with providing the audio and lighting equipment as well as the computers and cameras needed to run the application.

We also created the application and filmed the content necessary using Chromo-Key techniques.

Overall the engagement was a huge hit, drawing large crowds of youth into the activity. So much so that traffic heading to the cinema was affected to the extent that we would have to switch the system off before each show began at the cinema.

Here are some highlight videos of the activation:

For the 2nd year of Festival, we made use of our popular one-of-a-kind motion racing simulator, the only one of its kind in Africa, to host a virtual driving competition with a leaderboard. Using the high speed LTE concept with the simulator is how MTN tied in the concept of speed with a racing simulator of this kind to activate.

As always, this 2,5ton beast of a machine that is able to simulate 2G's of force on the body is a very popular and fun choice for activations, that gets a lot of repeat engagements.

Overall, 2 extremely fun projects to be involved with, that engaged high numbers of people in an enjoyable way.