Case study · Donostia / San Sebastián, Gipuzkoa
Reale Arena, gate by gate, without relying on sight.
How Real Sociedad Fundazioa adds NaviLens codes on Reale Arena's entrance gates and concourses: gate, stand, row and accessible toilets read aloud in 42 languages, with no need to focus and no extra app.
Real Sociedad Fundazioa
Reale Arena · Donostia / San Sebastián
18 Feb 2025
Launch at the Reale Arena Auditorium (Gate 0)
Gates + concourses
NaviLens panels on entrances, stands and accessible toilets
42
Languages — voice readout without downloading another app
The client
Real Sociedad Fundazioa
Reale Arena · Anoeta
Real Sociedad Fundazioa is Real Sociedad's foundation and the arm through which the club delivers its social projects. Its home is Reale Arena, the stadium in San Sebastián's Anoeta district: a venue organised by gates, stands and row ranges — a grammar that, until now, could only be decoded by looking.
With NaviLens, that signage stops being purely visual: every gate and every concourse becomes a point you can listen to — gate number, the stands it serves, row range and accessible toilets, in the language of whoever is asking.
§ The challenge
Reaching your seat without asking for help.
- 01
A stadium explained in numbers
Reale Arena runs on a purely visual grammar: the gate number in blue above the entrance, stands 10 and 11, sector 6 and row ranges 22-01 and 23-30 with arrows for stairs up or down. An excellent system… if you can read it.
- 02
The last fifty metres
The hard part isn't getting to the stadium: it's the stretch between the entrance gate, the right concourse and the row. A short walk that, without audible signage, means asking a steward or being accompanied at every match.
- 03
Facilities that never announce themselves
Accessible toilets, the baby-changing room and the ladies' toilets are marked with pictograms beside the concourse doorway. If you can't see the pictogram, you don't know the facility is there — or how far away it is.
§ The solution
A code on every entrance gate.
Outside, the NaviLens panel sits next to the gate number — as at Gate 6 — carrying the Real Sociedad Fundazioa crest, the NaviLens App icon and a QR code to download NaviLens GO.
Fans point their phone without focusing — NaviLens is detected several metres away, in motion and at up to a 160° angle — and hear which gate it is and which stands it serves, in Basque, Spanish, English and up to 42 languages, before they even reach the turnstile.
§ On the ground
And another in every concourse.
Inside the ring no panel is needed: a screw-fixed plate carrying the code on the concourse wall is enough, right beside the accessible-toilet, ladies' and baby-changing pictograms.
There it voices what the blue signage only shows visually: stands 10 and 11, sector 6 and rows 22-01 and 23-30, along with the stairs going down or up to each range.
§ Timeline
From painted signage to a stadium that speaks.
- Starting point
All the wayfinding, on the wall
Gate numbers, stands, sectors and row ranges resolved in blue vinyl and pictograms. Clear, well-executed signage — but one that only works through the visual channel.
- 18 Feb 2025
Launch at the Reale Arena Auditorium
Real Sociedad Fundazioa presents its new accessibility package at the stadium Auditorium (Gate 0), with Ainara Muga (Projects Manager at the Fundazioa), Andrea Parte (Director of ONCE in Donostia), Zuriñe de Anzola Guerra (Coordinator of Retina Gipuzkoa BEGISARE) and goalkeeper Álex Remiro, whose mother has low vision.
- Entrances
NaviLens on the stadium gates
Entrance gates — such as Gate 6 — get a NaviLens panel next to the gate number, carrying the Fundazioa crest and the download QR, so the entrance can be identified from the street before reaching the turnstile.
- Inside
NaviLens in concourses and accessible toilets
Inside the ring, the code sits on the concourse wall, next to the accessible-toilet, ladies' and baby-changing pictograms and the signage for stands 10 and 11, sector 6 and rows 22-01 and 23-30.
- Match day
Two layers that complement each other
NaviLens solves the journey — finding the gate, the concourse, the row and the toilets — while the Escoita app, also driven by the Fundazioa, delivers live audio description of what happens on the pitch and in the stands, narrated by Xabier Larrañaga.
§ Results
A stadium any fan can walk through.
~15,000
People with visual disabilities in Gipuzkoa — over 2% of the population
0.03 s
Detection time · up to 12× more distance than a QR
42
Languages — gate, stand, row and facilities in the fan's own language
“The experience was incredible.”
§ And your destination?
Your destination can also guide in 42 languages.
Tell us about your routes, offices, monuments or galleries. We’ll show you how NaviLens would make your offer accessible —with comparable cases.
