Digging Into the Los Angeles Clippers Project at Intuit Dome

Image Credit: Los Angeles Clippers

The Los Angeles Clippers are raising the standard for a “house of basketball” at their new home, the Intuit Dome, which is currently under construction. A HUGE part of the project is the nearly acre of video display hanging above the court – the largest ever double-sided halo display in an arena setting.

If that sounds like a mouthful, it’s because it has never been done before and includes approximately 38,375 square feet of digital display space. We’re talking more than 3,592 60-inch televisions! For those that want the specs, its inner halo measures 32 feet high by 623 feet in circumference and its outer halo measures 28 feet high by 661 feet in circumference. All 4K and featuring a tight 3.9-millimeter pixel spacing.

Okay, to hear more about this project, we talked with our resident expert, Daktronics Project Executive Luke Tingle. If you’re more of a listener than a reader, click here to listen to the full podcast. Otherwise, read on to hear what Luke can tell us about this massive project currently underway in LA.

Image Credit: Los Angeles Clippers

Luke Tingle

The Intuit Dome will be the new home of the Los Angeles Clippers, and it's set to open in 2024. We've been working on this project for almost three years now – I think conversations started all the way back to 2019, so almost four years that I've been involved in this project. And when they brought us on as a partner. We started early on with the designs and how we incorporate the display into the project.

Matt Anderson

You said discussions started back in 2019, what were those early talks like?

Luke Tingle

Typically, when we get involved, the owner will have an architect on board and a general contractor on board, and they have a vision. So, we want to learn about their vision and their goals for their project, whether it's a retrofit or an all-new build like this.

So that's where the discussions start. The design team had the vision of this halo and worked with Mr. Ballmer on what that might look like and comparing it to a traditional centerhung and us giving our experience and the trade-offs between the two. We’re really just working through the construction logistics of what each would look like and the impacts to the building and the budget.

Justin Ochsner

Was there anything in this early stage – working with the architects and the construction team – that they knew exactly what they wanted? Or even like you mentioned, Mr. Ballmer, the owner, was there something he was looking for when building this? Was there kind of a specific element to that vision?

Luke Tingle

I think just high level, getting to be on a few teams calls with Mr. Ballmer, is he's a basketball fan. He's doing this to build a true basketball arena that the Clippers will have home-court advantage on. And specific to our scope, the halo was always part of the discussions. And I think where we get on as a partner is, you know what to look out for, right? Like the different heights, different sight lines that the architect wanted our input on, and the technology that goes into that to make sure it's not out-of-date hardware by the time you put it in.

I think that was a discussion we had with Mr. Ballmer is that you know that he's a software guy coming from Microsoft. So, the software is always going to be able to be updated. But you just want to make sure he was putting the right hardware in there so that it was going to be fresh and relevant, even five years after the building opens. And so there were a lot of discussions around the technology and how that fits into the overall architecture of the building.

Matt Anderson

So, we talked about everything going into this halo, but what truly makes this unique from other projects that you've worked on?

Luke Tingle

I think on the halo, they reference it's almost an acre. And growing up on a farm in South Dakota, that hit home, that's a lot of square footage. So, we're just under 40,000 square feet just in the halo alone for both display faces and I think just the sheer size of it is unique.

But it's interesting when you sit in these meetings with architects, and you know how good they are at their jobs, and sightlines is a big part of that to make sure every fan has a great experience and can see everything they need to see. And something as large as that halo definitely had to be reviewed quite closely.

To add to that on the sidelines conversation, the halo is about 640 feet around on the largest circumference and on each end there are about 60-foot wide sections that we call the optimal hoist. They are actually on hoists, almost like a traditional centerhung, where they're going to raise up out of the way. And that's to improve sightlines for concerts. They will only be raised during non-basketball events to help audiences see stages if they're on different ends of the arena.

Now, when you're talking about something that large and the structure that comes with this, just to support the sheer size of it, you start talking about the alignment and the tolerances to be able to do that and then getting the technology a little bit.

This is currently sitting on a 3.9-millimeter display. And on these operable ends, the goal is to keep the gap where the hoisted ends meet at less than two inches. And to do that and repeat that precision we've actually had to employ some design partners on the hoist side and on the track system side.

So, we're actually using a similar type of track system that they use on retractable roofs on these operable ends to be able to raise them up and down and repeat that setting. So, when it is lowered back in game mode, it lines up and looks continuous so that the engineering in this alone, just on the halo, is definitely something that's unique.

Justin Ochsner

I'm thinking of the engineering here. It's kind of blowing my mind and I'm just going to repeat that the whole halo is not raising and lowering itself. It's just a section of each end of that halo that's raising up out of the way for sightlines and then lowering back down. So there’s just a section of the halo lifting and then coming back down depending on events. And that's just crazy to think about. There's got to be a lot of engineering work going into the back end of this.

Luke Tingle

Yeah, you talk about a traditional centerhung – and these displays are getting massive – that weighs, let’s say, about 100,000 pounds, that's a very good sized centerhung inside of an arena. And this halo has two of those on each end, which is over 100,000-pound hoist capacity to be able to raise those 60-foot wide sections up.

Matt Anderson

This is where we get into the “it's not just a display” all the time. We say it’s not just a big TV. And you can kind of tell by the way you're talking, even you are excited about this. Like, this is cool stuff!

Luke Tingle

Yeah, we're excited about the challenges. And when you do something this big and this complicated, there's a lot of challenges to work through and make sure you integrate into the building and the construction and that the tolerance is there. I've been doing this for 17 years, so I've done a lot of centerhungs and unique projects, so I appreciate the challenges on large projects like this of how do we work through those and find solutions.

Justin Ochsner

And you’ve talked about the number of people working together to make sure this happens, so many people need to be involved to make sure it's done correctly, done safely and installed properly so that it can actually come to life in the end. Because that's the end goal, making a positive impact on those basketball fans and live-event audiences. And you talked about an acre of scoreboard, almost an acre, and we're making how many modules for this? And how far ahead of time do we start to make sure that this is installed on time?

Luke Tingle

We actually started making modules last November and, sort of leading up to that, we actually expanded our manufacturing capabilities last summer where we cut a hole in the side of one of our buildings upstairs and inserted another module line. And we actually added some robotic machinery too, to make cabinets and panels for this project and many more.

So, we started in November 2022 and we're still building. We actually have one of the halos complete as of February 2023, where each side is about 30,000 modules. You're talking over 60,000 modules of approximately a 12-inch square. That is the building block that makes up this display. It's just that the logistics that come with how do we manufacture that? How do you store that? How do you ship it and then install it?

It's been quite interesting and the conversations I've had to have with our team of 20 to 50 people – and there are far more that are even in the background – that are on weekly meetings with me on our manufacturing side that are helping people work through something of this size and the additional challenges that we maybe don't see on other traditional projects.

Justin Ochsner

Do you know we're going to actually start shipping these?

Luke Tingle

We’re going to sync up with our construction schedule on that beginning in March for some of our steel components on the hoist, then the actual cabinets that house those modules hopefully this spring and summer, and then the modules will follow shortly behind that. We're talking over 30 semi-truck loads of 40-foot flatbed trucks that we're going to have to deliver this.

So, be on the lookout for trucks shipping our products to LA this spring and summer as we look to being the installation of this massive double-sided halo! Also, please click here to listen to the full podcast. The conversation covers so much more information about other aspects of Intuit Dome and the LED technology we’ll be providing for the new venue that opens in 2024.