RAM goes multimedia to drive traffic
Royal Alberta Museum is ditching billboards for multi-message setup
When you’re building the glitzy $340-million Royal Alberta Museum in downtown Edmonton, sticking up a roadside billboard like its predecessor used to advertise the exhibitions inside wouldn’t cut it, the developers of the new facility decided.
Instead, the museum is getting a second-storey video screen 20 metres wide by nearly six metres high, wrapped around its southwest corner.
Technicians began testing the screen last week so passersby on 103A Avenue can get a preview of the eye-catching outdoor screen as it cycles through screensaver style, high-resolution video clips of fireworks, the planet Earth, a cloudy-sky scene, stars and waves.
When the museum opens in late 2017, the screen will showcase the newest exhibits and share information about happenings inside along with interesting facts about Alberta.
It’s also designed to be a hightech come-hither pulling people across busy 103A Avenue, the traditional north edge of downtown.
“It will act as a flame to the moth and draw them into the museum,” said Tom Thurston, director of capital development at Alberta Culture. “It will certainly signify that that is the main entrance and the information shown on it will give them a reason why they want to come in that door.”
The old Royal Alberta Museum used portable signs and static billboards to advertise shows.
“Besides not being very esthetically pleasing, they’re costly to change — billboards cost a lot of money to resurface every time you want to put a new image on — and they’re extremely difficult to change out in the winter months. This way, we can magically (change) our messaging and have different messages throughout the day.”
Supplied by Prism-view, a company that has put up big LED screens at Chicago’s Soldier Field stadium, and the home court of the Utah Jazz, the museum’s screen features millions of pixels 20 millimetres apart to give a high-resolution, but not high-definition, graphics. The cost of the screen was not immediately available.
Motorists and neighbours have complained about some digital signs in the city being an annoying distraction, but Thurston said it shouldn’t be an issue for the museum’s screen because sensors automatically dim the sign as the daylight darkens.
While construction on the building finishes this summer, the museum still needs to be fitted and furnished with exhibits.
“We’re going to be harnessing a lot of state-of-the-art technology in all of the displays, so I think this is just going to be a taste of what’s to come.”
We’re going to be harnessing a lot of state-of-the-art technology in all of the displays.