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"It’s going to be spectacular just to see our fans react to it": DKR to debut brand new lighting technology this Saturday

Joe Cookby:Joe Cook•09/15/23•

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Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium (Will Gallagher/Inside Texas)

While the unfazed Adonai Mitchell was cutting a rug during Alabama’s traditional playing of “Dixieland Delight” at Bryant-Denny Stadium, Texas executive senior associate athletic director for external affairs Drew Martin was taking in the moment as the Crimson Tide faithful hurled expletives at Texas, Auburn, and LSU (and Tennessee, too) during the traditional sing-along.

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Within one of college football’s cathedrals, stadium lights flickered on and off with a purpose, while crimson accent lights highlighted the signature moment of the Alabama football fan experience.

Texas was up in the close contest in which the Longhorns would eventually prevail, more than enough reason for Martin to smile. But the light show was a small foreshadowing of what he and 100,000 fans will see see Saturday at a sold-out Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium as the longtime home of the Longhorns debuts brand new lighting technology, including the ability to bask the stadium in burnt orange.

“I’m actually more fired up about it after being in Tuscaloosa and seeing it,” Martin said in an interview with Inside Texas on Friday.

The Longhorn athletic department made a number of upgrades to DKR over the offseason, but new stadium lights that can flash burnt orange or a number of other colors will be the ones fans immediately recognize.

“It’s all exciting, but those moments where we will go full burnt orange in the stadium? It’s going to be spectacular just to see our fans react to it,” Martin said.

Martin explained how he, athletic director Chris Del Conte, and deputy athletic director Shawn Eichorst saw lighting as one of the ways Texas could improve the fan experience. SEC schools like Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, and countless others from various leagues had the technology at their home venues and Texas saw it as something they should add to DKR.

“This is one that we circled early on, and, truth be told, we were planning on doing this much earlier in the process but this thing called COVID came along and derailed a lot of things that we had visions of doing that were not insignificant capital expenditures,” Martin said. “It just wasn’t the right time to spend that money. I’m glad that we’re here finally.”

It’ll be something that adds to the fan experience, but the process of mastering the show will be one Texas learns a lot from this year ahead of the SEC move. However, some of the signature elements of the Texas football gameday will be amplified in ways never before seen in Austin starting this Saturday night, and Steve Sarkisian and company couldn’t be more thankful.

“Creating that homefield advantage, creating that experience here at DKR I think is something,” Sarkisian said Thursday. “I appreciate CDC and Drew Martin and all their work that they’ve been putting together to continue to create the environment this place can have.”

Martin said the show will begin from the moment the Showband of the Southwest puts on its pregame performance. Martin and his team, notably director of creative video Jeff Hanel, director of broadcasting and big screens Daniel Dupoux, and head broadcast engineer Matt Alvarado, will see the pinnacle of their efforts in between the third and fourth quarters.

“Our third-quarter break is going to have a fantastic light show for all the elements that happen in that break,” Martin said. “Our traditional Wabash Cannonball that the band plays and the spirit areas do the back-and-forth motions doing that, we have some lights programmed to that. We have lights programmed with our ‘Get Your Horns Up’ (Walter) Cronkite video, and then we go right into Thunderstruck – the energy moment heading into the fourth quarter.

“That’s when the stadium is, in my opinion, is really going to pop off. Fans need to make sure that they’re in their seats in the stadium during that break between the third and the fourth quarter, because it’s something to see. It’s very exciting.”

Those moments will be linked to an experience in the Texas Longhorns app that ticket holders use to enter the stadium. Right by the “Tickets” button in the app, there’s a new option called “Horns Lights.”

Texas fans have done the flashlight thing when “Thunderstruck” or “Don’t Stop Believin'” plays from the loudspeakers situated above the scoreboard in the south end zone. This new experience, according to Martin, will take what he calls an “iconic moment” to a different level.

“This capability allows us to blink and flash and create patterns with your phone lights in the stadium,” Martin said. “Instead of just holding up your camera light with the flashlight, you hold it up with the lights activated on your app. We’ll be able to blink, flash, strobe, do all the things with the flashlight in the stadium, and it’s really, really cool. It’ll be an educational process for certain, but it’s really, really exciting to see how that works.”

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The possibilities are almost endless, but the image of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium bathed in burnt orange, one most who clamored for lighting upgrades had in mind, is the one Martin and countless others can’t wait to see.

“We have some exciting surprises planned for tomorrow night as well, but these moments I think are going to be really, really special,” Martin said. “To get the imagery, the videos, and the photos of a full capacity crowd at 100,000 washed in burnt orange lights? It’s going to be epic imagery.”

After a daytime kickoff versus Rice and a road game at Tuscaloosa, the 7 p.m. kick on Saturday will be the first chance for the public to see the new bright lights Martin, Del Conte, and the athletic department have been preparing all summer to show off.

Despite other programs having similar technology, Martin reiterated that the one fans see Saturday will have a Texas flavor.

“It’s great to see other places and how they do things, but we’re not trying to mimic or be anybody but Texas,” Martin said. “We’ve got a great gameplan tomorrow night to highlight the things that Texas does best, to highlight our traditions, to highlight some things we’re moving toward in terms of some fan interaction.”

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