postcard | A little bit of Montreal in Tampa

Clouds Livranso
Journalism

This part of our house is the thousands of tiny glowing bracelets that twinkle during pre-game presentations on Wednesday. The bracelets are provided by PixMob in Montreal.

On the site, the company is represented by Xavier Bégin-Leblanc, the operator programmer, who ensures that the presentation runs smoothly.

“My heart is with the Canadian, but in the present context, my head is with lightning! He says between two sips of sour beer at a microbrewery on the outskirts of downtown.

Like Quebec journalists watching the Stanley Cup Final, Bijen LeBlanc is “stuck” in Florida waiting for a possible return to Tampa in Game Five. Poor guy.

So what exactly does a programmer worker do?

“For us, Wednesday’s game started on Monday. We had 16,000 bracelets to put together, and we had to give a title, a section, he explains. That’s what gives the detail, the control, which allows me to make diagonals, concentric circles, circular segments that go.” We can do a lot of detailing.”

Distribution must be completed the day before the match. Moreover, when we took our place in the stands of the Amalie Arena, Wednesday morning, to observe the morning practice of the two teams, the bracelets had already been placed on the bench coils. One per seat. The process, which lasted about five hours, concluded around 10pm the day before the match.

“Then I continue to make programming changes. On match day we arrive around 1pm to make corrections. It’s 6pm, it’s dress rehearsal. We rode the show. It’s often the first time you see it in the dark. I, I’m behind the console, it’s Like a normal light unit, I push the buttons.”

All this preparation for a relatively short time. This is because the NHL requires bracelets to be closed during a game to avoid visual distractions. And then, “Once the lights come on that light up the rink, we can go on as we want, we really see a few bracelets!” “.

That final is fine, but PixMob lived on, with Taylor Swift’s tours, the Spice Girls, and many clients in the NBA and NHL, not to mention a few Super Bowls. In particular, the halftime show of the last Super Bowl, which one wonders if The Weeknd ended up finding the exit. Our man confirms: “We are used to the ‘heat’ of major events.

And then, during the Canadian-Golden Knights series, PixMob debuted with Canadians for the first time. The company had already contributed to the visual billing for the shows at the Bell Center, but had never contributed to the Habs game. In addition to the bracelets, PixMob then used NOVA’s ultra-bright pixels, which allow “to take up empty seat space,” assures Xavier Bégin-Leblanc.

It remains to be seen if the initiative will be repeated next year, in front of a slightly full runway.