Top Gear Live stages world's largest mass participation driving game

Top Gear Live breaks records with driving game

Chantelle Thorley, 26 November 2009

Organisers of Top Gear Live staged the world's largest mass audience participation driving game at Earls Court earlier this month.

Around 4,500, fans of the show ‘test drove' two of the world's greatest supercars, via an interactive racing game produced by interactive technology and production specialist Inition.

The audience was split into two, each group being given a car to compete with.

Steering was operated by participants collectively holding up red or green cards for left or right, while speed was controlled by the level of noise each side made – the louder the audience shouted the faster the cars went.

Dedicated cameras filmed each half of the audience and analysed the ratio of red to green cards shown by participants, and microphones were fed through specialist software to dictate the speed of the cars.

"I have always wanted to get the Top Gear Live audience participating more in the show, and developing an interactive lap of the Top Gear test track is about as perfect as it gets," said Top Gear Live executive producer Rowland French.

"Through working with Inition on yet another ground-breaking project we have easily succeeded in making the most advanced piece of motoring theatre in our history, which I hope our audience will enjoy."

The show is currently on a world tour and opens in Dublin next week, before moving on to Amsterdam, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Sydney and Auckland.

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