A Tour of Brooklyn's Super-Connected Barclays Center

The Barclays Middle is 1 of the most technologically sophisticated venues in the world. Dwelling house of the Brooklyn Nets and The New York Islanders, the multi-purpose event infinite has hosted everyone from Jay Z to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The audition for these events is incredibly diverse, merely they all have one thing in mutual—they want to stay continued.

Barclays Center The tech team behind the loonshit delivers connectivity, but does more than simply provide access. The building's technology redefines the way people collaborate with the construction around them. The Cisco Connected Stadium intelligent network—implemented past High Point Solutions—controls the Barclays infrastructure, including customer Internet admission, security, surveillance, ticketing, and signal of sale transactions.

"Barclays is a bang-up showcase for people to understand how technology tin can complement the live feel," says Chris White, SVP of Internet of Things and Internet of Everything at Cisco. "People want to share and amplify the experience."

If you are inside the Barclays Heart, yous can access Wi-Fi. White says 98 percent of attendees bear witness upward with a smartphone, and lxx-fourscore percentage expect to get online at an event. Delivering wireless access in an arena that can concord upward to 19,000 people isn't easy.

"The actual design of how you lot put Wi-Fi in a stadium is extraordinarily complex," White says. "This it isn't about heading down to Best Buy and picking up some routers."

Travis Sampson is the Senior Director Information technology at the Barclays Center. It was his job to make sure that Wi-Fi network really worked. "We went with a high-density Wi-Fi," Sampson explained. "We tin can allow up 21,000 people on Wi-Fi with a continuous connexion at whatsoever fourth dimension."

Another big part of the Barclays connected feel is the venue's app. Available for Android and iOS, information technology serves as a handheld control panel for the entire arena, with background information on the team or artist yous are watching, as well every bit the option to club a beer and accept it delivered to your seat.

"Now that I am connected, how do I make that experience seamless? The app helps y'all go to your seat faster, makes it easier to upgrade, you can see multiple camera angles. You just have a stickier experience," White explains.

One of the eerie things virtually standing in an empty Barclays Middle is how dark it is. The branding and banners are turned off because the center uses digital signage almost exclusively. A unmarried control room controls more than 700 HDTVs, 100 concession menu boards, and the giant, hanging display at the middle of the arena. From the control room, you can evangelize an advert or a replay video to any of those screens simultaneously.

Many nights, information technology is Logan Meyer sitting in that control room managing all of those displays. We asked him what all those buttons are for.

"Barclays jumped onto the digital signage play very early," White says. "But think most the efficiency and flexibility of being able to reconfigure your marketing bulletin on a dime."

Barclays also micro-targets customers inside the stadium to area businesses. "One of the unique things about Barclays is that they endeavour to connect with the community," White says. "If you are a smaller vendor you can get into the Middle to market to the local microbreweries and the local pizza places."

Ultimately, all the technology inside Barclays needs to offer something to the user, whether it is Wi-Fi, the location of the nearest bathroom, or a hot domestic dog delivered to your seat. "The customer isn't going to connect with you lot if they are non getting anything out of it," White explains. "And if they don't connect, how do you stay in touch with your customers?"