Future Flight – Super Bowl LI

IDEAS created, produced and delivered a dramatically new kind of brand activation for the city of Houston with the development of Future Flight.

The project was a massive brand activation — a manned space exploration experience — that became the heartbeat of the 2017 Super Bowl LI (51) Host Committee fan experience at Discovery Green in Houston’s city center.

Future Flight was the centerpiece attraction on Discovery Green, directly adjacent to the George R. Brown Convention Center. In a partnership with Johnson Space Center, Future Flight was the first-of-its-kind experience.

It combined virtual reality and drop-tower ride technologies for an iconic, memorable “WOW!” that only Houston (home of NASA’s Mission Control) could offer.

Experiential Excellence

Each rider donned a VR headset before taking their seat below the onboard audio system. Then, the ride transported them into space on a guided personal journey to Mars.

The ride started its ascent up the drop tower, with liftoff atop the most powerful rocket ever built — the Space Launch System. It carried the Orion spacecraft through low Earth orbit, past the moon and on to Mars.

Once on Mars, the VR experience became very real.

Participants viewed the actual Martian surface using 360-degree images that NASA’s robotic rovers captured. The return was a timed, high-speed plummet back to Earth.

Riders plunged through the open roof of NRG Stadium and landed on the 50-yard line at Super Bowl 51 just before kickoff!

By all fan, NFL and Host Committee stakeholder accounts, this was truly the best Super Bowl Live fan experience ever.

Future Flight also included exhibit space for influential groups. These included NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Orbital ATK and Raytheon.

In addition to Future Flight, IDEAS produced Houston LIVE! — a dramatically new kind of brand activation for Houston and the Super Bowl LI Host Committee. It sat across the street from Discovery Green in Houston’s city center.