OnePlan transforms venue planning with high-performance digital twins

This blog is co-authored by Winnie Cruzan, Senior Content Marketing Manager at OnePlan and Cem Kilinic, Senior Architect at OnePlan.

Introduction

In the ever-evolving world of venue management, staying ahead of the curve is paramount to success. As venue owners strive to deliver unforgettable experiences at their stadiums, arenas, conference centres and beyond, the power of technology becomes a game-changer.

Event venues need the ability to visualize how events will look in light of security, crowd safety, hospitality sales, and operational excellence. OnePlan, a leading provider of event site and venue planning software, harnesses the capabilities of Amazon Web Services (AWS) to transform the way major venues now conceptualize, plan, and manage their events year-round.

This is accomplished through OnePlan’s geographic information system (GIS) mapping and digital twin platform, Venue Twin, which is accessible for anyone to use via the cloud. Venue Twin enables venue managers, event organizers, and their stakeholders to create virtual replicas of physical venues, map detailed layouts, simulate crowd behaviour, and optimize event logistics.

In this blog post, we explore how OnePlan implements cloud-based services and tools from AWS to provide a high-performance solution for Silverstone Circuit, home of the Formula 1 British Grand Prix and 50 other events each year.

Figure 1 – Venue Twin interactive venue planning in 2D

Customer challenge

Silverstone Circuit hosts over 50 events each year, ranging from corporate events to Moto GP and the prestigious Formula 1 British Grand Prix. The sheer complexity and scale of the venue poses significant hurdles, including the need for 9,000 contractors to fully align with the events team.

Silverstone Circuit previously relied on a mix of Computer Aided Design (CAD) files and documents shared via email for its event planning. This approach posed version control  challenges and lead to inefficiencies in event planning.

Modelling and simulating intricate venue layouts, optimizing crowd management, and integrating real-time data from various sources require a robust and scalable infrastructure. In addition, ensuring low-latency access, especially for event organizers located in different regions, demands meticulous planning and implementation of distributed systems.

Furthermore, the dynamic nature of venue planning requires the ability to handle sudden spikes in user demand, as well as the provisioning of high-powered resources for intensive tasks such as 3D modelling and video rendering. This necessitates the seamless orchestration of compute resources and efficient storage solutions to support multiple user sessions and accommodate resource-intensive workflows.

Solution

To address the challenges faced by Silverstone and other major venues around the world, OnePlan benefits from its use of services and tools from AWS.

Ensuring high resilience is critical to guarantee uninterrupted access to crucial data and resources. OnePlan achieves this by strategically leveraging AWS services at the region level, using multiple Availability Zones (AZs) to achieve fault tolerance and resilience. For storage, OnePlan harnesses the power of Amazon Elastic File System (EFS), a scalable and highly durable file system. Using Amazon EFS’s Standard storage class, OnePlan’s file system data and metadata are stored redundantly across all Availability Zones within the region, allowing OnePlan to ensure that data remains accessible even in the face of AZ-level failures. This redundancy not only protects against data loss but also enables seamless failover, ensuring a continuous and reliable user experience.

Figure 2 – Venue Twin architecture

OnePlan’s commitment to delivering low-latency experiences extends beyond a single region. Recognizing the importance of global reach, OnePlan employs a multi-region architecture to minimize latency and enhance user experience. This benefits their digital twin customers, delivering consistent low-latency whether the customer is an NBA or NFL team anywhere from the east coast to the west coast, or even a major sports event in Australia.

For optimal performance in Australia and the rest of the world, OnePlan relies on the Amazon Aurora Global Database service. This allows OnePlan to deliver lightning-fast response times, ensuring that venue and event organizers interact with their digital twins in near real-time, regardless of their geographical location. The strategic placement of Amazon Aurora Global databases in various regions ensures that users can access and interact with their digital twins without compromising performance or speed.

To produce immersive 3D models within digital twins, OnePlan dynamically provisions high-power instances with high-performance graphics cards on a per-user session basis. Leveraging Amazon EC2 instance types, OnePlan dynamically instantiates g4dn instances, ensuring that event organizers have the necessary compute power and graphics capabilities to generate stunning 3D models. Additionally, OnePlan employs Amazon FSx, a fully managed file storage service, for shared storage requirements. By using Amazon FSx in multiple region clusters, OnePlan ensures that users in the United States, for example, can seamlessly collaborate and access their digital twins stored in an Amazon FSx file system based in the USA. This distributed approach optimizes performance and reduces latency, enhancing the user experience regardless of geographic location.

Figure 3 – Silverstone Circuit motor racing track digital twin

OnePlan’s dedication to delivering high-quality video experiences within digital twins is also powered by AWS. The OnePlan Venue Twin VideoBuilds subsystem makes ultra-high resolution full motion videos of future-state sporting venues using photorealistic 3D models. This requires high power servers, orchestration at multiple layers, and high throughput. VideoBuilds, a key component of their platform, leverages AWS batch processing capabilities to run highly demanding video rendering tasks. By using a dedicated cluster of powerful servers, VideoBuilds efficiently processes video files from a defined queue, providing event organizers with rapid and accurate video renders. This lets event organizers visualize their concepts, designs, and layouts with exceptional clarity and precision.

For robust logging capabilities, OnePlan leverages the power of Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon OpenSearch. Amazon S3 serves as a highly scalable and durable storage solution for log data generated by the OnePlan platform. By directing logs to Amazon S3, this ensures that critical information is securely captured and retained for analysis and auditing purposes. To efficiently search, analyze, and visualize log data, OnePlan uses Amazon OpenSearch, a fully managed search and analytics service. With the powerful querying capabilities and real-time monitoring available with Amazon OpenSearch, OnePlan gains valuable insights into the platform’s performance, user behavior, and potential issues. This proactive approach to log management allows OnePlan to swiftly identify and address any anomalies or security incidents, maintain the platform’s integrity, and provide a seamless experience for event organizers. Harnessing the power of Amazon S3 and Amazon OpenSearch for logging sets a solid foundation for effective monitoring and analysis of the event management platform.

Business impact

Implementing OnePlan software leads to real business impact and repeatable return on investment (ROI). Using OnePlan’s innovative technology, Silverstone has streamlined its venue management processes, achieving a 13x ROI. This includes substantial time savings comprising:

• a 10% reduction in days because of a reduced need for site visits
• a further 5% time saving efficiency with contractors

Figure 3 – Quote from Silverstone Circuit’s Senior Events Manager, James Loveridge

The positive effects are evident across OnePlan’s clients. A major music festival in the United States saved 85% in time planning by switching to the GIS mapping and digital twin platform, and a stadium security firm that previously spent 200 hours of planning per event now takes just 75 hours, thanks to OnePlan.

Conclusion

With highly available, global infrastructure from AWS, advanced analytics, and robust machine learning capabilities, OnePlan sets a new standard for event planning and execution.

OnePlan’s ability to create and manage high-performance digital twins for its clients is made possible through the strategic use of AWS services. By leveraging the resilience and fault tolerance provided by multiple AZs, coupled with the scalability and reliability of services such as Amazon EFS and Amazon Aurora, OnePlan ensures uninterrupted access and low-latency experiences for event organizers worldwide.

In the case of Silverstone, home of the F1 British Grand Prix, OnePlan empowered the venue to achieve a 13x ROI. Through its innovative approach and reliance on AWS, OnePlan is redefining venue management by delivering exceptional GIS and digital twin experiences, setting new benchmarks in efficiency, resilience, and user satisfaction. With the power of AWS, the possibilities for creating remarkable events at Silverstone and beyond are virtually unlimited.

To learn more about OnePlan and its digital twin solutions, reach out to sales@oneplanevents.com