Bright and bold: AE Live NZ on taking World Rugby’s SVNS tournament to the next graphical level

AE Live NZ has worked closely with World Rugby to provide the Sunset+Vine production of SVNS a vibrant new look for the 2023/24 season

World Rugby relaunched its popular Olympic sport format, rugby sevens, as SVNS at the beginning of the 2023/24 season that has just closed with a spectacular finale in Madrid. The aim of SVNS is to use the refreshed competition, in combination with a festival atmosphere inside and outside of the stadiums, with a revamped television production to bring in younger and more diverse fans and viewers.

Aiding World Rugby with that aim is AE Live, which – from its New Zealand-based arm, Ignite, also known as AE Live NZ – has worked with the federation to bring bright and exciting graphics to host broadcaster, Sunset+Vine’s, production. We spoke to Kaylene Hurley, AE Live’s general manager in New Zealand, about the relationship and what AE Live NZ has provided for the SVNS broadcast. 

On SVNS, how did you end up working with World Rugby?

KH: Our relationship with World Rugby started back in 2018 when we, under the company name of Namadgi, won the pitch for the 2018 Rugby Sevens live match graphics package, which at the time was to become the largest watched rugby broadcast across the US.

“We made a conscious effort to present the match graphics in an innovative way to make the tournament feel fresh, youthful and celebratory. Executing this is always a delicate tight rope walk”

This subsequently led to us winning the Sevens global tournament package, and then after a hugely competitive pitching process, the World Cup match graphics and title sequence for the Rugby World Cup Japan in 2019 was awarded to Ignite NZ.

From 1 December 2020, Ignite NZ became AE Live NZ, and with that World Rugby continued to be serviced by the same local New Zealand team.

What exactly have you provided for World Rugby’s revamp of the SVNS broadcast?

Overall we provided:

• A ‘one stop shop’ for all graphics solutions
• Fresh and evolving graphics that pushed the boundaries of match graphic design
• Well integrated live feed statistics and analytics to enhance the fan experience
• Ability utilise data mining on all databases to enhance content
• Integration with venue infrastructure for clocks and other data
• Constant innovation in design, content and technology
• Reliable operation and clean integration with the OSB infrastructure

On the new graphics package for SVNS this season, Ignite was extremely happy to bring World Rugby’s SVNS 2023 vision to life, developing and delivering a vibrant and celebratory motion graphics package. This festival of rugby was to be a design with cut-through, that followed the sun across the globe to eight international locations.

We were dedicated to visually reinforcing the geographical location of each sub-brand logo mark. The title design utilised 3D, 2D, live action sports and shot footage. The fast-paced, graphics-treated montage conveys the energy, joy and locations of this spectacular global tournament.

Ignite and AE Live also developed the SVNS Sundial Clock to indicate the passing of each nail-biting minute within the seven minute game half to amplify the tension. Every SVNS Sundial Clock was bespoke to each of the eight tournament locations to bring a different flavour to each geographical location.

Ignite is incredibly passionate about World Rugby and they see themselves as custodians of, and ambassadors for, the brand.

The GFX gallery in Cape Town in December 2023 with AE Live and Sunset+Vine crew

What were the main challenges for you on this project?

Pushing the boundaries to develop new ways to display the data is always a challenge; our goal is to capture and display data to improve the viewers’ experience without distracting from the game.

We made a conscious effort to present the match graphics in an innovative way to make the tournament feel fresh, youthful and celebratory. Executing this is always a delicate tight rope walk; you need to push the visual language without breaking it, or alienating more conservative sports fan, whilst still keeping it fresh.

Ensuring that animations are smooth and dynamic across the project so that graphic elements create a cohesive whole and integrate seamlessly with each other is a challenge that we are always keen to tackle.

The scale of the project was also a challenge; developing a package of this size with over 151 templates, all built in viz – from Vizrt, the Viz Engine team work closely with Ignite to make sure what they design will work in a live sport environment – is up there with the larger graphics of packages we deliver.

And finally for the AE Live graphic producers, statisticians and software developers at the venues around the world it was business as usual, delivering the new graphics in that live environment to a global SVNS audience.

AE Live NZ has worked closely with World Rugby to provide the Sunset+Vine production of SVNS a vibrant new look for the 2023/24 season

How have you worked with Sunset+Vine on this project?

We have worked with Sunset+Vine many times across a multitude of projects, they are a great production partner, extremely agile, collaborative with a great reputation of delivering engaging live sports programmes.

How do you think it’s all gone? 

We have a productive and collaborative partnership with World Rugby; it’s a perfect partnership in every sense.

The World Rugby team are constantly evolving their content, broadcast and creative approach, and given we work closely with them on their broadcast, data, creative and design outputs, we have the ability to give them strong support to help them achieve their goals on the global stage.