JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Even though COVID-19 restrictions will limit the capacity of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium to 20% for the Florida Gators’ home opener against the South Carolina Gamecocks on Saturday, a Jacksonville printing company is helping fill the stands with fans.
Since only around 17,000 fans can attend the game in person, Raintree Graphics was asked to make cutouts of fans.
The cutouts will not only help with social distancing but allow fans to still be at The Swamp.
“We’re making these cutouts that they’ll attach to the benches, on the sidelines and in the endzones,” explained John Brophy, the general manager of Large Format for Raintree Graphics. “And they can see them on TV.”
On Thursday, News4Jax got a look at the machines working to print the cutouts.
“They’re made out of a recycled plastic called Coroplast," Brophy said. “We’ve designed them to run 6 up on a big 5-foot-by-10-foot sheet, and we’re printing them on a flatbed printer.”
As of Thursday, the company had made thousands of Gators fan cutouts.
“We’ve received an order for 2,500 at this point," Brophy said. “We’re all big Gator fans here, and it feels good to be part of the beginning of change.”
Despite in-person attendance being limited, Brophy said seeing the printout smiles on TV will be worth it.
If you go to the game and decide you want a fan cutout of your own, you can look at the back of the cutout, go to your camera and scan the QR Code. Then, it will take you to a website giving you all the information about how you can get your own cutout.
And while the deadline has passed to have your cutout installed by the Gators' first home game, you can buy one throughout the season.