Find Soccer Tourney Locations with New Map App

The following message is a special announcement from the Local News Network about an exciting new partnership with Skidattl. The 30th annual Durango Shootout soccer tournament will bring more than 9,000 soccer players and their families to town on May 9th, 10th, and 11th. And a new augmented reality map will help all those visitors find their way around town. Imagine you're one of hundreds of out-of-town parents trying to get your soccer player to the Riverview Elementary School soccer field on time for the next Durango Shootout game. But because the field is tucked away in a neighborhood, that won't be easy to do. This year, however, parents, coaches, and players will have a map app at their disposal to find their way around town. Local News Network has developed a new augmented reality map app just in time to debut during the CommonSpirit Durango Shootout soccer tournament this year. Tournament director Kathy Wilson says the app will be a game changer for the tournament.

I'm constantly getting emails and phone calls during the tournament, not only just from coaches and managers, but from their parents themselves. So this is just a way for us to get the information out to them. It's a really simple app, and in addition to that, their schedules are going to be on the app. On the app, they can get all of the information that they need to help make this a successful tournament.

The app uses your phone's camera to pinpoint pre-identified locations using a geographic information system program called Skidattl. LNN can customize the map app for different special events or business uses.

Skidattl is an augmented reality experience where, you know, it's really best used outside. It falls under the umbrella of wayfinding much like an app or a mapping program would. But instead of, you know, looking down at your phone, and then looking up at the world to find out, you know, to translate this into the real world, with the Skidattl experiences, you can hold your phone up and look at the world in real time, but there's an overlay of geographic information. So, you know, if you have a beacon that's right there, you still see what's out there, but that beacon is also displayed. And you can tap the beacon, get more information about that location, that event. Then you can pan around the area and you say, "Oh, there are the bathrooms," and there'll be a little beacon over the bathrooms. And, "Oh, there's the, you know, under 14 fields over there," you know, game, game, game. "There's the registration tent over there." You've always got it in your pocket, it's always with you, but it's a really easy way to translate that geographic information into, you know, an action.

LNN representatives will be at the soccer tournament registration desk to help participants download the map app. In the meantime, you can check it out using the QR code on the screen. Wilson says she expects the map app to set a new standard of organization and scheduling for athletic tournaments everywhere.

I can't explain what a difference this is going to make, and I'm not aware of any other apps out there for tournaments right now. So this is going to be a great addition. I mean, people, it's going to be a great addition to tournaments and people are going to expect this now at other tournaments.

To learn more about the soccer tournament, visit durangosoccer.com. And for more news about the area, visit durangolocal.news. Thanks for watching, I'm Zach Marqua.