Disguise Drives New Immersive Racing Experience, F1® Box

Disguise is proud to have worked with the creators of F1® Arcade - the world’s first official experiential hospitality brand dedicated to Formula 1 - to deliver F1® Box, a thrilling new racing simulator experience in Westfield Stratford City shopping centre. 

Designed to fully immerse fans in the authentic feel of a real Formula 1 race, F1® Box includes 12 full-motion racing simulators complete with audiovisual commentary and 4K screens for gameplay. Powered by and controlled through Disguise, an LED wall and reactive LED lighting on the racing simulators and floor-to-ceiling arches add a dramatic edge to the racing showdown, where players can compete in two twenty-minute, back-to-back races before celebrating wins with real-time leaderboard content developed by Disguise.

To bring the experience to life, Disguise's technical services team began by using the 3D visualiser in Disguise’s Designer software to create a real-time, pixel-accurate representation of the entire space, including visuals, lighting, leaderboard and simulators. This visualisation was sent directly to F1® Box stakeholders for approval, saving days by streamlining the process and ensuring the creative vision was met in pre-production. Quick changes could then be implemented in Designer before the team even arrived on site, helping to reduce the production timeline even further.

Once on site, the Disguise team programmed the entire space, with synchronised LED visuals, atmospheric lighting and immersive audio all coming together in one multisensory hit thanks to Disguise’s video output, lighting and API controls, and DMX mapping — which linked the LED wall, arches and simulator lighting in perfect unison. This elevated F1® Box so that, unlike traditional arcade simulators, the experience expanded to fill an entire room. Anyone entering the space would be surrounded by everything from LEDs across the back wall to wraparound lights and more, with key moments including strobe lighting pulsing to the sound of a heartbeat and a nail-biting starting grid countdown to further the immersion.

To fulfil F1® Arcade’s vision and bring the competition to life, Disguise’s creative services team leveraged Designer’s data integration in Notch to pull racing data directly from the simulators in real-time. This resulted in a dynamic leaderboard that displays instant results with each competitor's name and finish time on various LED displays as soon as races are completed.

Designed to support immersive activations looking for an accessible way to utilise the capabilities of Designer and achieve pixel-perfect playback, a Disguise EX 3+ media server powers the space, including the leaderboard. This offers full content flexibility and reliability to ensure that the lighting, audio and visual elements are flawlessly synced 11 hours a day, seven days a week.

“In today’s world, experience is everything, and audiences are looking for activations that offer full immersion from all angles,” says Alexandra Coulson, VP of Marketing at Disguise. “With perfectly synced LED visuals, dramatic lighting and thundering audio, F1® Box puts visitors at the heart of the action, making them really feel like they are right there on the track. Disguise is the perfect solution for anyone looking to bring next-gen immersive experiences to life for fans, and we’re thrilled to have worked with F1® Box on this exciting new format.”

“When you’re simulating an experience as iconic as a Formula 1 grand prix, every detail matters,” says Adam Breeden, CEO at F1® Arcade. “That’s why we’re so excited to collaborate with Disguise’s team. Using their software and hardware, we could streamline our workflow to create a perfectly detailed, synchronised immersive experience that allows anyone to step into the shoes of an F1 driver.”

To experience F1® Box, visit Westfield Stratford City. Slots are available to book online, as well as some walk-ins.

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