Commonwealth Stadium, Edmonton, in Canada created an interactive Venue Twin of its stadium to visualize event layouts and enable virtual site visits for its stakeholders.
We spoke to Jason Fesyk, Supervisor for Stadium and Major Events Facilities, about how Commonwealth Stadium’s VenueTwin is a game-changer for venue visualization, including reviewing fields of play and operational plans.
Venue Twin is ideal - it gives us a forward look into what our venue will be like for game-days.”
Jason Fesyk
Supervisor for Stadium & Major Events, Commonwealth Stadium
The Commonwealth Stadium Events and Operations team uses VenueTwin to visualize how the historic stadium will look for different events. They can switch between different fields of play, different room layouts and export videos to send to stakeholders at any time.
For Jason Fesyk at Commonwealth Stadium, it brings instant benefits. “This is a game-changer. Coming from an event background, I’ve got lots of different files that don’t integrate.
“Venue Twin is ideal – it gives us a forward look into what our venue will be like for game-days.”
Adapting the stadium for Sports and Entertainment Events
Commonwealth Stadium, Edmonton hosts a range of sports and entertainment events, that’s included the 2015 women’s football World Cup, to concerts for David Bowie and Beyonce. As such, Jason’s team often needs to quickly adapt the stadium.
“There’s a lot going on in our complex all the time: outside of the stadium itself, there are parking lots, a 5,000 seat soccer stadium nearby, a fully operational recreation centre, and so on. The opportunity to integrate our environment and create a VenueTwin so that we can see operationally what it’s going to look like is a pretty big move for us.”
“Having Venue Twin allows us that flexibility and gives us the opportunity to ensure the venue is prepared and ready for the next event it hosts,” says Jason.
The digital twin is accessed via a web link, making it easy for anyone in Jason’s team to use. Users can create bookmarks to jump between different locations of the venue easily, and can also review measurements and sizes with VenueTwin’s in-built measurement tools. It also allows for defining television broadcast views from optimal points in the stadium.
Having OnePlan’s Venue Twin allows us that flexibility and gives us the opportunity to ensure the venue is prepared and ready for the next event it hosts.”
Jason Fesyk
Supervisor for Stadium & Major Events, Commonwealth Stadium
A new Content Creation tool with stunning visualizations
VenueTwin can be a powerful sales and marketing tool for venues such as Commonwealth Stadium, becoming a content creation tool that anyone in the organization can use.
Jason continues: “VenueTwin has so many useful tools. The planning side is one thing, but we can use this as a marketing piece as well.”
The entire venue – the outside district, every floor level inside, and of course the playing area – can all be shown in VenueTwin. Users can select the ‘Video Path’ option in the menu, select the points of their video and simply click to generate it as a file downloaded to their desktop. The videos can then be sent to prospective VIP customers for premium hospitality.
"It gives sponsors a much better view of what their brand’s going to look like in our venue"
Jason Fesyk
Supervisor for Stadium & Major Events, Commonwealth Stadium
With VenueTwin, Jason and his team at Commonwealth Stadium have been able to “assess usable space and areas to build out compounds that aren’t currently there. Being able to build out different set-ups for sports and concerts provides us with so many more possibilities for how we envision our stadium in any future state.”
In the main menu, Jason’s team can simply select ‘Field of Play’ or ‘Object Switcher’ to then switch between different field of play visualizations, and different room layouts.
These can be easily shared with event promoters, sponsors and advertisers for a hyper-realistic view of what the venue will look like in any scenario. “It gives sponsors a much better view of what their brand’s going to look like in our venue,” explains Jason.
Virtual site visits for stakeholders
Commonwealth Stadium, and the City of Edmonton, used VenueTwin in its bid to be a host venue for the FIFA Men’s World Cup 2026, showing how changes to the stadium would appear, including signage and branding.
“It was great using VenueTwin to show what our stadium would look like for a major soccer tournament. We were able to show a real-time, realistic virtual walkthrough of the stadium in 3D.”
The partnership between Commonwealth Stadium and the City of Edmonton brings potential to integrate other venues in the city. Training venues, fan sites, transport hubs and any venue can be created as a digital twin, meaning the city can visualize and plan ahead with ease and accuracy.
The opportunity to integrate our environment and create a VenueTwin so that we can see operationally what it's going to look like is a pretty big move for us.”
Jason Fesyk
Supervisor for Stadium & Major Events, Commonwealth Stadium
Quick to create, providing long-term benefits
Jason has found VenueTwin easy to use – a valuable new tool. “It has been an amazing, integrative piece. I’m very impressed with what the VenueTwin team has done.”
To create a digital twin of your venue, contact us today.