Your first rotation

A rotation is the sponsor loop that plays on a perimeter board for the whole match. To make one, you describe your boards, connect a canvas to that description, and then fill a list.

This tutorial takes about twenty minutes. By the end, sponsor content is looping on a perimeter canvas.

What you need

• Your first show, completed.
• The Pro plan. Free, Audio and Club do not have sponsor rotations. On Club, an LED perimeter plays idle content and sequences. See Plans and limits.
• Two or three images or short clips in your library to use as sponsors.
• The pixel size of your cabinets, if you know it. If not, this tutorial gives you a temporary value.

You do not need LED hardware: the preview stays live throughout, and you can connect the real board later.

1. Describe the boards

A surface is how ArenaDirector describes a physical LED installation. Canvases take their size and their sections from it.

1. Open Configuration.
2. Under Venue, select Patch.
3. Select + Add output → LED boards. The LED surface page opens.
4. Under Type and cabinets, in Name, type the name of the venue (not the board), for example Home Arena.
5. Set Type to LED perimeter.

Now describe the hardware.

6. In Cabinets (wide × high), enter 52 and 1.
7. In Cabinet size (width × height), enter the size of one cabinet in pixels.

These values are the pixel area that one receiving card controls. The setup software of your board lists it as the size of the receiving card.

If you do not have the real values yet, use 72 by 90 for this tutorial.

2. Add sections

A section is a named run of cabinets that plays its own content. Each side of the ring makes a good section.

A new surface has no sections. Under Sections, select + Add section three times. Give each section a name and a number of Cabinets. For this tutorial, make three sections:

Name	Cabinets
North	26
East	13
West	13

Look at Surface size. With the values above, it shows 3744 × 90.

If you want a single loop across the whole board, add no sections. You can divide the board later without building the surface again.

3. Create the perimeter canvas

1. Under Show, select Canvases.
2. Select New canvas.
3. Give it the name Perimeter.
4. Set Surface to Home Arena.

Resolution disappears, because the canvas now takes its size from the surface's cabinets, and the preview tile turns into a long strip.

Do not assign a display yet. A canvas without a display still shows a preview.

Screenshot pending

first-rotation-01-surface-canvas: Configuration → Venue → Patch with three sections and a derived surface size, and the resulting strip-shaped canvas preview. Tracked in website/SCREENSHOTS.md.

4. Build the rotation

1. Close Configuration.
2. In the top bar, select the ad-board icon to open Perimeter.
3. At the top of the rotation list, select +. Its tooltip is New rotation.
4. Type the name Match day.
5. Under Board, select Perimeter. If it is the only canvas with a board, it is already selected.
6. Select Create.

You cannot create a rotation without a board. If Create is disabled, check that you typed a name and selected a board.

The editor now shows one column for each section (North, East and West), with time running from top to bottom.

7. In the North column, select + at the bottom of the column.

8. Select two or three items from the library. You can select several at once.

9. Select each block.

10. In the settings panel, set its Length to a short time, for example 5 seconds, so you can see the loop change quickly.

    Videos do not use this value. They play for their full length.

11. Add one or two items to East and to West.

5. Go live

Select Go on air.

The rotation starts its loop on the target canvas, and the perimeter tile in the Outputs strip at the bottom of the app shows it playing. In the editor, the strip above the columns shows the live output of each section. A playhead moves down the columns, and each column header shows the item playing now.

In each column, the block on air fills up as it gets closer to the next block.

To stop the rotation, select Stop. The board shows black.

6. Watch a takeover

1. Let the rotation continue.
2. Right-click a hot button.
3. Open the Sources & triggers tab.
4. Expand a video or image source.
5. Select Targets.
6. On the Perimeter canvas, select only North.
7. Save the hot button.
8. Fire that hot button.

North switches to your hot button, while East and West carry on unchanged.

When the hot button stops, North goes back to the loop and shows whichever item is scheduled for that moment, because the schedule kept running while the hot button covered North. So a takeover costs one sponsor a few seconds and never pushes the rest of the rotation later. Takeover and resume explains the rules.

Where to go next

• To connect the real hardware, see Connect an LED board.
• If your ring is wider than your sending card's input (most are), see Fold onto a sending card.
• To record what played, see Tag sponsors and Export proof of play.