Commercial printer Clarke Murphy Print has teamed up with the NRL to produce hundreds of corflute cut-outs of fans to fill empty stadiums following the re-opening of the season last Thursday. Fan in the Stand is expected to be rolled out further in coming weeks.
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| Spot the printer: NRL fan cut-outs produced at Clarke Murphy Print |
With crowds not allowed to attend matches for the time being, the NRL has launched the Fan in the Stand initiative, giving supporters the chance to "watch" their team play live from inside the stadiums. For $22 plus GST, NRL members and fans can have their photo printed on a 100% recyclable cut-out and placed in their team's current home venue.
Sydney printer Clarke Murphy Print, which offers wide format, digital and offset print services at its headquarters in Chatswood, is producing the cut-out fan images on its swissQprint Nyala machine.
“We saw it overseas about six weeks ago and we started to build the front end to drive these printing machines, and then, in conjunction with the NRL, we brought it to life,” Clarke Murphy Print director Benn Murphy told Channel 9.
NRL head of marketing Peter Jarmain said: "We wanted to make sure the lifeblood of the NRL, our members and fans, had the chance to pull on their jerseys, don their club colours and support in a really fun way.”
Fans are already having fun with the concept. The Easts/Souths game at the weekend was attended by a cut-out of British PM Boris Johnson's chief advisor Dominic Cummings (below, centre), who broke COVID-19 restrictions to travel 250 miles to visit his parents farm. Another NRL fan paid $22 to have his dog appear on national tv.
With fans unlikely to be entering stadiums for the foreseeable future, the cut-out initiative is expected to be rolled out across all venues in coming weeks.
To order your photo, go to nrl.com/faninthestand
A $1 donation will be made from every purchase towards the *Gotcha4Life Foundation.
Footnote: It has been reported in mainstream media that mischievous elements have inserted crowd shots containing cut-outs of unsavoury characters. This has nothing to do with Clarke Murphy Print and one case was a spoof from a TV show. The matter is under investigation - Publisher
