Fanzones are becoming an increasingly important part of the live sports experience.

Clubs, federations and venue owners are recognising that a great sporting event needs to offer more than the action itself. Fans increasingly expect an experience around the event too — somewhere to meet, eat, drink, watch, play and soak up the atmosphere before and after the main event.

The benefits are clear. A successful fanzone can encourage fans to arrive earlier and stay later, increase food and beverage spend, and deepen their connection with the club, event or venue.

It also creates valuable new inventory for commercial partners — and an opportunity to engage fans at a time when their attention isn’t entirely focused on the action.

Why crowd games work so well

Crowd games are a natural fit for fanzones.

Most fanzones already have big screens in place. Piing turns those screens into interactive entertainment, allowing hundreds or thousands of fans to play together using their own phones.

The games are simple to join, easy to understand and designed for mass-participation. Most importantly, they create a genuinely shared experience: cheers, laughter, competition and friendly rivalry that can transform the atmosphere in a fanzone.

For commercial partners, they offer something more valuable than simply putting a logo on a screen. A branded game gives fans a reason to actively engage with a sponsor — often for several minutes at a time — while creating opportunities for prizes, calls to action, lead generation and first-party data collection.

Here are a few examples of how clubs, rightsholders and commercial partners have used Piing games to bring their fanzones to life.

Brighton & Hove Albion / American Express

In April 2025, Premier League club Brighton & Hove Albion opened The Terrace, a major new fanzone outside the Amex Stadium.

With capacity for 1,000 fans when enclosed and up to 3,000 during the summer months, The Terrace gives supporters a new pre-match and post-match destination on home matchdays, while also operating as a leisure and entertainment venue for screenings, live music and other events throughout the year.

Alongside live football and other content on its big screens, Brighton wanted to give supporters something they could actively take part in.

Piing delivered four different games for the club — Footy Racer, Footy Rebound, Quiiz and PenKick — which can be scheduled throughout the day and played by fans on the big screen using their phones.

The games proved such a successful part of the experience that Brighton's lead sponsor American Express subsequently became the presenting matchday partner across all four games.

Brighton also has club-branded versions to use outside home matchdays, including away-game watch parties and other events at The Terrace — meaning the same gaming platform continues to deliver fan engagement and commercial value throughout the year.

Formula 1 / Multiple Partners

Piing's racing game has been adapted for teams and sponsors at Formula 1 fanzones and hospitality experiences around the world.

Fans simply scan a QR code with their phone and use it as a controller, steering left and right to avoid obstacles as they race other fans on the big screen.

It takes seconds to understand, requires no app download or specialist hardware, and regularly leaves the crowd wanting one more race.

One of Piing Racer's biggest strengths is its customisability. The same underlying game can be transformed to fit a particular team, sponsor or event — from vintage McLarens and Ferraris to completely bespoke branded environments.

Piing has delivered F1 activations incorporating partners including IBM, Aramco, Dell, Allwyn and Mastercard.

For Aramco, the game went a step further: participation was integrated with the brand's own fanzone registration system, helping turn a fun piece of entertainment into direct, measurable fan engagement.

Wimbledon / Barclays Clubhouse

The Barclays Clubhouse at Wimbledon provides a particularly good example of how crowd games can turn otherwise passive time into a memorable brand experience.

In 2025, Barclays used a specially customised version of Piing's Tennis Racer to entertain fans before they entered The Championships. The game was given a distinctly Wimbledon feel, with players racing through a course featuring obstacles including umpire chairs and punnets of strawberries and cream.

More than 8,000 Barclays customers played during the tournament, turning time spent waiting in the famous Wimbledon Queue into an opportunity to compete, have fun and interact directly with the Barclays brand.

The activation returned and evolved in 2026 as Strawberry Dash, entertaining more than 13,000 fans in the Queue Village.

It's a simple example of what crowd games can add to a fanzone or fan experience: taking an existing audience, an existing screen and a period of downtime, and turning them into a moment of shared entertainment — with the partner at the heart of it.

Put Some Play Into Your Fanzone

Big screens are great for showing content. But they can do much more.

Piing transforms screens into shared experiences that fans actively participate in — creating energy in the space, increasing dwell time and giving partners a more engaging way to connect with the crowd.

From a single branded activation to a suite of games that runs throughout a season, Piing can create a solution tailored to your venue, audience and commercial partners.

Want to take your fanzone to the next level? Get in touch with Piing and let's get your crowd playing.