For a stretch Friday night in Detroit, the loudest thing in the building wasn’t the crowd, the music, or even the action on the floor, it was an arena horn that simply would not stop.
Midway through the third quarter at Little Caesars Arena during the Pistons’ game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, a power surge triggered a malfunction in the overhead scoreboard system. What began as a routine horn meant to signal teams back from a timeout turned into an extended, uninterrupted blast that lasted for several minutes while arena staff scrambled for a fix.
The air horn at Little Caesars Arena has been blaring for over 5 minutes as staff scramble to turn it off pic.twitter.com/8DMcm6zVRV
— MrBuckBuck (@MrBuckBuckNBA) February 28, 2026
With the horn still blaring, play was halted and both teams were eventually brought back onto the court to stay loose during the stoppage. After roughly 13 minutes, staff finally silenced the noise by shutting down the entire overhead scoreboard, drawing a loud cheer from the crowd. The delay ultimately stretched to 18 minutes before the game resumed.
Because the main system was compromised, the officials and table crew pivoted: for the remainder of the night, the arena relied on a manual air horn to handle the basic in-game signals. In an appropriately bizarre coda, the overhead scoreboard reportedly came back on shortly after play restarted.
