14-Foot Screen Stars at Patriots Tailgate Party

The colder it gets in Foxboro, Mass., the more New England Patriots fans appreciate Audio Video Intelligence’s (AVI) work.

AVI installed the video — including a 14-foot diagonal Vutec projection screen — for a Patriots pre-game indoor venue, All Pro Celebrity Tailgate Party, hosted by charitable organization Rodman Ride for Kids.

The “indoor” part alone makes it worth the average $250 donation paid by the 500 or so attendees at each home game, jokes Fred Smerlas, former All-Pro nose guard for the Buffalo Bills who finished his career with the Patriots.

Smerlas runs the charity with Glenn Ordway, a local sports radio host on WEEI. Both use AVI for their home system installations.

Projecting an Image

The main reasons AVI handled the All Pro Celebrity Tailgate Party installation are because Rodman Ride for Kids is a good cause and Smerlas and Ordway are good clients, says James Shapiro, co-founder of North Easton, Mass.-based AVI.

An added benefit, Shapiro adds, is that it’s excellent exposure for AVI. AVI signage is spattered throughout. The company also has a booth where it raffles off a Blu-ray player at each home game.

The 500 or so attendees at each game “are spending an average of $250 to come here, plus the price of their tickets — and they’re football fans,” Shapiro says. “Those are the types of customers we want.”

Vendor partner Control4 helps AVI aggregate the contact information gathered from the raffle and handles follow-up marketing on its behalf.

About 30 percent of AVI’s business is commercial, but Shapiro says it’s mostly “specialty commercial,” meaning it’s in high-end restaurants and luxury hotels.

Vutec Takes the Ball

The tailgating venue, which is across the street from Gillette Stadium, provided AVI with a unique challenge because the warehouse-like facility with skylights and windows isn’t ideal for video projection.

“The [Vutec SilverStar] screen uses a special 6.0 gain so it’s a highly reflective surface and it helps with this ambient light,” Shapiro says. “We use a 4,500-antilumen Epson projector.”

Vutec custom built the screen for venue. “We called a lot of other manufacturers and each said a screen like this would take six or eight weeks to build," Shapiro says. "Vutec got it out to us in 10 days from the time it was delivered to the time it was with us.”

Shapiro and co-founder Allan Waldorf marvel at how well the nearly 14-foot screen looks. “Because of the scope of everything in here, you forget how big it is, but it’s unbelievable,” Shapiro says.