Champions: Vodafone, Hado, ESL/Weavr, Warner-Brothers Discovery, DAZN, BT Sport, Twickenham Film Studios, Olympic Broadcasting Services, Kings College London
5G and the Arena of the Future for XR Events
Fresh off their 2021 IBC Project of the Year victory, the winning combo of 5G and XR (Extended Realities) returns to extend 5G’s low latency and connectivity into the 3D arena of the future via live and virtual Augmented Reality esports, motion capture, and multi-location, multi-platform, multi-player fan hyper-personalisation using immersive real-time technologies synchronized in a single virtual environment for social interaction.

The Challenge Objectives
A bespoke, unified space will be created to combine a virtual, layered 3D metaverse-style arena with a physical sports grounds, to demonstrate locality, player interaction and a next-gen audience entertainment experience using 5G, augmented reality and 360-degree spatalised audio elements.
The goal is also to provide a hyper-personalised experience for both players and fans via 5G low-latency for real-time gameplay telemetry exchange, motion capture for live avatars, custom content and immersive social platforms.

The Aim of the POC
- Remote, 5G-powered live studio production for an XR Event, with the integration of a traditional esports production workflow into multi-location XR worlds
- OTT delivery & broadcasting opportunities
- Motion capture for a virtual, 3D environment in real-time, with telemetry learnings from both player and fans
- Data-led fan interaction and personalised experience using analytics and data visualisation
- Real-time rendering of data, video streams, virtual presenter and live gameplay in a 3D world, using Unreal & Unity game engines
- Accessible, consumer-focused experiences via AR/VR/XR devices
- Develop Ecommerce monetisation models for real-time delivery of ads, content, and/or brand awareness into both physical and virtual XR environments

The Innovation
The innovation of this project will explore and aim to showcase the power of high-speed connectivity via 5G, Cloud/Edge computing, for 3D worlds and OTT delivery so that studios, broadcasters, and content providers can now go beyond the traditional delivery infrastructure and pipelines for live, immersive and interactive XR content production.
Groundbreaking Innovation Tools:
- 5G Connectivity
- Cloud & Edge Computing
- Pixel Streaming
- Motion Tracking & Telemetry Systems
- Object Capture
- Low Latency Transport
- AI Data Analytics & Data Visualisation
- Live, Real-Time Rendering
- OTT Platforms
Together, these innovation tools will enable a higher level of interactivity and engagement from audiences, while also reaching them through more mediums (both 3D and traditional), anywhere and at any time, and give the power for viewers to make their own stories and a new ecosystem of next-gen content creators and opening the ecosystem for differentiated monetisation opportunities.
Please complete the form below if you are interested in joining an Accelerator project.
For more information, please email the team at accelerators@ibc.org