Celina completes engineering and manufacturing of all the mesh panels that cover the Oculus in SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California.
The Oculus, in LA’s newly completed SoFi Stadium, is the only 4k end-to-end video production in sports. It is currently the largest LED content playback system in the world and the only one of it’s kind. Each display of the double-sided video board can be programmed with unique content. Suspended from the roof of the stadium, it spans 120 yards, weighs 2.2 million pounds and covers 70,000 sq ft. Celina is proud to have been selected to be a part of the team responsible for finishing this technological wonder.
This project required 232 mesh panels. 116 upper mesh panels for the top of the Oculus and 116 lower mesh panels for the lower portion of the Oculus below the large Television monitors. There were no two mesh panels the same. Tribal Scenery Inc. working with Facid North America provided Celina with 3D models of the Oculus rigid aluminum frame. From these 3D frame models Celina’s engineering team using MPanel 3D form finding software transformed the rigid frame into a textile tensioned black mesh skin for those areas of the Oculus that were to be covered for aesthetic purposes. This is the same textile tensioning software we use on our tension structures. Once the skin is formed into shape we are able into transfer the tensioned 3D model into 2D flat panels that can be cut on our CNC cutting equipment. The black panels were manufactured using Snyder Mesh.
The finished upper panels averaged in size 10 ft wide x 17 ft long with three horizontal seams. The finished lower panels averaged in size 10 ft wide x 27 ft tall with five horizontal seams. So 232 panels were made up of 1,160 individual mesh pieces welded together using hot air welders on 928 seams that averaged 10 feet in length. These seams all needed to match up with the adjacent panels. We were able to accomplish this with only two of the 232 panels getting to the field and needing to be adjusted due to dimensional form fit and function issues. In addition to matching seams we had 46 of the 116 lower mesh panels that were partially printed with the SoFi Stadium and Samsung Graphics printed on the individual mesh panels prior to cutting and welding these large panels together. So these graphics had to align vertically across welded seams and horizontally across the aluminum frame members.
Celina began running preproduction samples and doing trials in October of 2019 for Tribal Scenery Inc. to prove our capabilities. In January of 2020, we were selected to manufacture these panels. Our initial shipment of field installation panels were sent on March 10, 2020. We continued the engineering and build of these mesh panels for three months as the Oculus frame was being assembled, with the last panels shipping on June 12, 2020.