VIDEO: World’s largest 4-sided video screen installed

Bristol Motor Speedway is a NASCAR short track located in Bristol, Tennessee in the USA. It’s the fourth largest sporting venue in America and the eighth largest in the world, and can accommodate up to 162,000 people. When the decision was made to host a college football game there, changes had to be made to the stadium.

Eric Barnhart, chief concept engineer at Barnhart said, “Of course for a football game having a pole in the centre of the field wasn’t going to work. That’s why they had to go to a suspended scoreboard above the field.”

The plan was to install the world’s largest four-sided video screen and suspend it in midair over across a gap of a quarter of a mile. Named Colossus, it weighs 700 tons (635 tonnes) and each side is 63 feet (19 metres) wide and 30 feet (9 metres) high. The Colossus superstructure consists of two parts, the Halo and the Gondola.

It is suspended by cables attached to four strategically placed towers.

The cables are anchored by massive concrete footings.

“There was a lot of planning and preparation as a lot of things needed for this job just have never been done before,” said Doug Pettit, senior project manager at Rentenbach Constructors.

“The hardest thing was working out how to hang the cables from the Halo back to the support towers, without damaging the bleachers. The cable itself is also fragile, you can’t drag it.”

The cables were not allowed to touch the ground during installation to protect the specialized sheathing.

Barnhart completed the project on time for the season’s first race, overcoming difficult weather conditions and complicated logistics to finish against a hard deadline.

To watch a more in-depth video of the project, click here.