The Orbit, HBO Max Retail Experience

An immersive world of entertainment served at the speed of light.

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INTRODUCTION

When you want to communicate the depth and quality of entertainment content your customers can enjoy, few solutions can match the magical experience of The Orbit.

The Orbit, an interactive digital experience, promotes and showcases HBO Max’s brand promise of providing the deepest, most high-quality entertainment properties available anywhere. Designed by HUSH, the 360° interactive experience uses facial tracking and voice recognition technology to share clips from HBO Max’s content library in response to visitors simply moving their body or speaking a few words. It can serve up relevant content from over 150,000 HBO Max clips in realtime at the speed of the 5G infrastructure.

Electrosonic provided the visual hardware technology integration in support of the experience design agency, HUSH. Together, we created a solution that sets a new bar for uniqueness, quality and inspiration for destination brand experiences.

OVERVIEW

HUSH’s design for The Orbit brings together advanced technologies including; machine learning, motion captures and voice recognition to create a seamless experience that delivers content in an innovative, almost magical way.

Using this cutting-edge technology, The Orbit responds to hand-tracking and voice prompts inviting visitors to explore and interact with thousands of iconic moments, characters and stories from HBO Max’s vast library of over 150,000 scenes in a personalized and intuitive way.

The experience immerses viewers in a space where reflective materials, interactive lighting and digital content combine to engage the senses while visitors discover the depth of HBO Max content.

The LED modules manufactured by SNA Displays present content in extremely high resolution. The 8’x18’ structure features 5.7 million pixels at a 1.56 mm pixel pitch.

Electrosonic painstakingly and expertly installed and integrated these modules at three locations, while maintaining an extremely tight schedule and working through pandemic challenges.

The ‘live’ version of The Orbit is available at three flagship locations across the United States. The installation has also been translated into mobile and online experiences so that HBO Max fans can enjoy The Orbit anywhere.

CHALLENGE

The challenge was to create a scalable, 360° interactive experience that communicates HBO Max’s depth of content, accessible at the speed of 5G infrastructures and systems.

The content had to be delivered to the user by a complex curved canvas of high-resolution floor-to-ceiling LEDs, which enables the truly 360° experience. The large number of LEDs had to be installed skillfully and delicately at three locations within a tight schedule of five days per location.

SOLUTION

Working with the experience design agency HUSH and SNA Displays, Electrosonic provided intricate LED installation and integration services for The Orbit. Electrosonic’s extensive experience with this type of LED product and specialty applications allowed us to provide the essential skills and expertise necessary for such a complex project, with the resources to complete three integrations during the pandemic. Despite the complex integration that makes The Orbit possible, visitors are not aware of the technology – the focus is on the user experience.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Orbit sets new standards in brand promotion, enabling visitors and customers to experience content from HBO Max in ways they had never seen before. The Orbit creates a destination-worthy retail experience that blurs the boundaries between retail and entertainment.

To accomplish this technologically rich experience, precise integration of a large-scale LED canvas together with an intuitive interface designed by HUSH allows visitors to experience content in an almost magical way.

Project Details

Owner

HBO Max

Client

SNA Displays

Partner

HUSH

Location

Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago

Services

Content Distribution

Audio, Video and Control Systems

Project Management

Commissioning

Installation

Testing and Validation

Aftercare Support

This was an incredible creative and technical opportunity for our firm to leverage design and creative technology and give audiences a unique experience of navigating the seemingly infinite world of HBO Max through interactive design. The resulting experience is functionally intuitive and fast, but also dreamlike, extemporaneous and unexpected.

David Schwarz

Partner, HUSH