Behind the Scenes at NZ's Largest Gaming Festival

On 7 September 2024, Spark Arena in Auckland became something New Zealand had never seen before. Spark Game Arena Live — SGAL — brought 8,000 gamers through the doors across two sessions, ran a $240,000+ prize pool across Fortnite and Valorant tournaments, and delivered what was, by any measure, Aotearoa's most ambitious live gaming event.

We were in the middle of it.

Ping Zero ran multiple activations simultaneously at SGAL — working with Spark, Red Bull, and NACON across different zones, formats, and audiences throughout the day. Here's what it actually took to pull that off.

What We Were Asked to Deliver

When you're part of an event at this scale, "activation" covers a lot of ground. Our brief at SGAL included:

NACON / RIG stand build — a custom exhibition stand for gaming hardware brand NACON and their RIG headset range
Just Dance zone for Spark — a high-throughput Just Dance activation as part of the main Spark experience
PC gaming for Red Bull — a dedicated PC gaming zone under the Red Bull brand
Street Fighter on the big screen for Red Bull — competitive Street Fighter matches projected large, running as a spectator-friendly activation
Sim racing for Red Bull — our race simulators running under the Red Bull brand with competitive lap formats

Five activations. Three brands. Two sessions. One crew.

Building the NACON / RIG Stand

The stand build was the first piece in. NACON and RIG — gaming hardware brands with high aesthetic standards — needed a branded environment that felt at home in a world-class venue. Our team handled the design brief, the physical build, and the on-site setup.

At an event like SGAL, a stand doesn't just need to look good in isolation — it needs to hold its own in a room full of sponsors all competing for attention. Getting the footprint right, the sightlines right, the branding visible from the right distances — that's the work that happens before a single attendee walks through the door.

Just Dance for Spark

Just Dance is our secret weapon at high-attendance events. Six players every three to four minutes, high crowd energy, and a format that draws in people who've never touched a controller. At SGAL, with thousands of people cycling through the arena over two sessions, throughput was everything.

Our Just Dance Team managed the zone — keeping the rotation moving, the energy up, and the crowd engaged. Just Dance has a way of creating moments: the person who was watching from the side decides to jump in, the group of mates who came to watch esports end up cheering each other on at Just Dance. It's one of the most reliably crowd-drawing formats we operate.

Red Bull — PC Gaming, Street Fighter, and Sim Racing

Working across three formats for one brand in the same event requires tight logistics. The Red Bull zones each had a different brief and a different audience.

PC gaming ran as an open-play Aimlabs zone — high-spec machines, aim training at a competitive level, the kind of setup that Red Bull's gaming audience expects. Clean, fast, branded correctly.

Street Fighter on the big screen was designed as a spectator moment. Head-to-head competitive matches displayed on the main screen, with the crowd able to watch and react. At a live esports event, that kind of format fits naturally — it reads as competitive, it's visually compelling, and it keeps energy in the room even when the main stage is between sets.

Sim racing ran in competitive lap format — players registering, posting times, chasing the leaderboard. Red Bull's motorsport brand heritage makes sim racing a natural fit, and the time trial format meant a fast, clear result every few minutes. It drives repeat play: people who didn't quite make the top time come back.

Managing all three simultaneously meant having the right crew in the right zones, with clear handoffs and a run sheet that everyone understood before the doors opened.

What an Event Like This Requires

SGAL was a reminder of what large-scale activation actually demands. The hardware is the easy part. The harder parts are:

Logistics. Equipment in, rigged, tested, and ready before the first session. No second chances once the doors open.

Crew. Not operators — hosts. The difference between a gaming zone that hums and one that stalls is the person running it. Our Game Coaches keep rotations moving, manage queues, troubleshoot quietly, and keep the energy up across an eight-hour day.

Coordination across brands. At SGAL we were operating under three different brand guidelines in the same venue. That means three different visual standards, three different briefing processes, and three different sets of expectations — all managed simultaneously.

Flexibility. At scale, something always changes on the day. A queue that's longer than expected. A format that needs adjusting mid-session. The ability to adapt without disrupting the experience is what separates a good operator from a great one.

Why We Love Events Like This

SGAL was the kind of event that shows what's possible when the gaming industry in New Zealand is taken seriously. A $240,000 prize pool. An 8,000-person crowd. International brands investing in a New Zealand audience. That's a shift, and we were there for it.

For Ping Zero, events at this scale are the proof of concept. We've been building toward the capability to operate multi-brand, multi-format activations in premium venues since 2002. SGAL was a chance to demonstrate that capability in front of the biggest gaming audience this country has ever assembled.

Planning a Large-Scale Gaming Activation?

Whether you're a brand manager planning a product launch, an event producer looking for a gaming partner, or an agency building an activation concept — we'd love to talk.

Explore our activation services or get in touch directly. We'll come back to you the same day.