From March Madness to football tailgating, collegiate sports bring out the best in a campus community and school spirit.
Of course, Game Day can also quickly turn into a massive nightmare. At its worst, it can cause significant disruptions to campus life. Parking lots get overfilled, and sometimes entire facilities close down for the duration of the game.
Against that backdrop, logistical organization is crucial. If everyone knows where to go, and you prepare for disruptions in advance, Game Day can easily become fun and manageable.
That’s where an interactive campus map enters the equation. While March Madness is coming to a close, we want to give you an idea of how you can utilize an interactive campus map for your upcoming sports season.
The basic promise of an interactive campus map
At its core, an interactive campus map is a bird’s-eye view wayfinding tool designed to get the audience acquainted with the space and easily navigate from point A to point B.
The word interactive is not an accident, either. With just a couple of clicks, drags, or taps, visitors can navigate around the map to get used to the campus on a mobile device or a computer.
Modern campus maps also offer promotional opportunities. Visitors can learn more about the college while they’re thinking of cheering on the local team, or even plan a campus tour while waiting for kickoff to start.
Pre-Game Day planning
Now, let’s take those abstract benefits of digital campus maps into an average game day scenario. Let’s suppose that your college hosts the regional conference basketball tournament this year. You will have fans flocking to your campus from across the region, all looking for the same basic information, such as where to:
- Spend the night near your campus.
- Find your basketball court.
- Buy tickets.
- Purchase food and drinks.
- Park before the game starts.
The virtual campus map can help answer all of these questions. For example, you can highlight hotels close to campus and include basic information like images, descriptions, and a direct link to the hotel’s booking site. Labeling public transportation routes through real-time data feeds in the campus map can also help visitors looking to take the bus or shuttle.
You can also connect the right parking lot directly to the arena, including the best way to get there without disrupting the regular campus flow. And, if your campus map lives within a larger platform like Google Maps, you can easily link directions directly to the spot, helping your fans and visiting teams find their way.
Secondary information, distributed in intuitive ways
Finally, don’t underestimate the potential of fans and community members who visit your campus during Game Day as a secondary audience. They might not be as likely to join your college as students or donate as alumni. However, you can still provide them with information about your university that enhances your brand perception.
On the interactive map, you can toggle a sports-specific layer that only shows information relevant to your audience, like the arena, parking, nearby refreshments, and hotels. But that doesn’t mean you have to stop there. Your interactive map can also highlight other areas of campus for those arriving early, allowing them to check out walking paths, your student commons building, and more. You can even showcase self-guided walking tours for visitors not interested in tailgating or looking to decompress after a close game.
Top-level navigation and call-to-action buttons help you build your university’s story while at the same time allowing your audience to learn more, schedule an admissions visit, and more.
The best part of this type of set-up is how it naturally integrates into the overall experience. It never takes top billing for your audience, so visitors just focused on watching the game can do so without intrusion. But at the same time, it remains available in the background, helping you tell that story and build your brand on an intuitive, on-demand basis.
Ready to transform your college game day experience?
Game Day can often make organizers and event planners stressed. With the right tools, though, what could otherwise be a logistical nightmare can become a much smoother experience.
At its best, it can be nothing short of transformative. Visitors and fans can partake in the event and seamlessly experience the school spirit, all while learning more about the university. Facilities departments, meanwhile, can minimize the disruptions that could otherwise become problematic for students, staff, and faculty.
Of course, the theoretical ability to build that experience matters little if you cannot turn it into reality.
That’s where we come in. Concept3D has extensive experience in building campus maps for all sizes of colleges and universities. From nationally-ranked teams to small-school Division III competition, we can help you build a product designed for your audience, intentions, and scope.
Want to see Interactive Maps in action?
Check out our pre-recorded demo.
