The Last Shot

Background

Jordan Brand wanted to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Air Jordan with an exhibition celebrating the feats of Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketball players of all time.

The Jordan All-Star Weekend exhibition was a suite of interactive experiences staged in Penn Plaza, directly opposite Madison Square Garden, where, on the Sunday night, the NBA All- Star game was to be played.

Idea

The highlight of the exhibition was 'The Last Shot,' a 1,200 square foot responsive LED half-court that allowed visitors to virtually recreate two of Michael Jordan's most iconic shots.

Nearly 10 million LEDs across 876 screens completely covered the floor and walls of the space. The experience was vividly brought to life by detailed visual and audio cues of the exact moments Michael Jordan won the game in the 1982 NCAA championships against Georgetown or his final shot as a player with the Chicago Bulls when he scored against the Utah Jazz to take the Bulls to their sixth championship.

When a participant stepped onto the court, the surroundings were transformed. The walls came to life and a realistic- looking crowd appeared while the floor morphed into parquet. A path lit up on the ground to show him or her where to go.

Depending on whether the player could get the shot in or not, the crowd cheered or booed. With amazing attention to detail, spectators in the crowd for the 1982 replay wore mullets and moustaches to give authenticity to the scene.

A live announcer provided a customised description of the play, all of which could be kept on video and shared across social media by each participant.

The installation was the result of a collaboration between AKQA and production company Los York.

Results

The mesmerising experience was hugely popular with long queues of fans hoping to get to experience what it was like to be Michael Jordan.

10,000 visitors were estimated to have passed through the exhibition, including a number of NBA stars.

As evidence that Michael Jordan truly was something special, only one in ten participants actually managed to replicate his winning shots.

1,500 shareable videos were made earning 34 million media impressions.

Our Thoughts

If you go online and read the comments of those who actually experienced this, it seems to have blown goggle-based VR experiences clean out of the water. One blogger described stepping into Michael Jordan’s shoes as ‘mind bending’, a potent mixture of incredible technology with the human touch.

What is intriguing is to read how some of the participants wanted to remain detached from the experience, to be superior to the trickery, but couldn’t.

In the old days, we could only imagine what it was to be like Michael Jordan. Today, VML have invited fans to imitate Michael Jordan (see ‘Salon des Refuses on p.7) but here is AKQA taking it to a whole new level, inviting Jordan fans to be the man. To be inside his shoes.

Amazing.