Houston Astros Team Store at Minute Maid Park, Houston, TX

Anchoring Center Field is the Astros Team Store, open year-round including non-game days. While planning a major renovation of the store, with shop floor space quadrupling to approximately 8,000 square feet, the Astros management team envisioned making the store a destination for fans and an exciting extension of the game.

To bring this vision to life, Astros management collaborated with Watchfire and a team of A/V specialists to create a unique LED display designed to attract the attention of customers and entertain fans with captivating visual content as they shop. The result was a first-of-its-kind dual-sided LED halo display suspended from the ceiling. Measuring an impressive 5' tall by 29' wide from ellipse to ellipse, the custom-designed oval-shaped display features inner and outer rings with continuous Watchfire S-Series 2.4mm LED displays that showcase engaging content, including seamlessly stitched-together videos, live game feeds, and social media posts.

Watchfire collaborated with an exceptional team of partners to bring the display to life. BrightSign, of Los Gatos, Calif., the global market leader in digital signage media players, contributed its cutting-edge technology to create immersive and captivating experiences for Astros fans to stay connected to events while shopping in the retail store.

Wallboard, of Carrollton, Texas, an enterprise-grade digital signage content management system (CMS), ensures seamless content management and scheduling for the display. Challenged by varying resolution requirements of different-sized displays, Wallboard ensures that content looks great, syncs together, and can be easily scheduled across an entire screen network.

Datapath, of Norristown, Pa., a leading video processing and control solutions provider, contributed their expertise with the Datapath VSNMicro 600-RPSU system, enabling seamless control and overlay of content zones. Humble Sign Company, of Humble, Texas, a renowned sign dealer, played a vital role in the successful installation of the project.

Today, fans entering the store are treated to an experience they’ve come to expect from the Astros. They can view team and player information, live interviews, sports feeds, highlight reels, and the latest in-store offers and promotions, all in an immersive and exciting environment, without missing a minute of the game.