DS for Modern Events Centres

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By Dieter Michel

The Mercatorhalle in the recently completed CityPalais in Duisburg, Germany, is a modern event centre comprising a large multi-use concert hall, a smaller hall and a convention centre, surrounded by excellent shopping facilities and restaurants. So the need for a modern information and advertisement medium soon became apparent. As this article goes to press, the new digital signage system installed and tailored exactly to the building’s requirement profile has been in operation for approximately two months.
 
Many event centres, such as the Mercatorhalle Duisburg, do not allow the posting of announcements for concerts and events inside or outside the building. Which is why the decision was made to install a modern and contemporary electronic information system. The aim was to find a digital signage system that would take over the traditional role of billboard advertising, with the option for more diverse functions according to changing demands.
 
When looking for a suitable contractor, digital signage system provider friendlyway stood out because it offers a kind of virtual construction kit for its products, which makes it possible for prospective customers to assemble a customised system and receive a quote just by visiting the friendlyway website. Such an approach works very well for users with an in-house marketing and technology department that knows exactly what it needs – as was the case with Mercatorhalle. But, of course, customers can also find out which system is right for their particular requirements in a personal consultation with a friendlyway sales representative.
 
Friendlyway’s digital signage system for the Mercatorhalle consists of a range of display devices (wall-mounted displays, presentation stands, etc.) with integrated presentation PCs and player software, as well as an admin PC including composer software, all of which are connected over a normal TCP/IP network either wirelessly or by cable.
 
Adapt to Survive
 
Flexibility was an important factor very early on: the display’s primary function is to serve as an event advertising and notification medium, replacing the traditional billposter; and also to enable other users of the centre to rent the medium to announce and display information on their events. According to Kai Thienwiebel, Mercatorhalle’s technical director, one of the main reasons for choosing the friendlyway system was the composer software, as it perfectly suits the in-house advertisement requirement profile.
 
Altogether four displays were installed in the lobby on the second floor, as well as two information stands, one of which was set up permanently in the main entrance area, visible also from outside the building, effectively replacing traditional billposting and announcements for upcoming events.
 
The second stand is portable and can be used, for example, for programme information during symposiums and conferences. Another possible application would be to display visitors’ guides with information on upcoming events and details on the location of conference rooms.
 
At present the monitors are showing a looped presentation of PDFs, photographs and video shots providing information on the centre’s range of events. If the building – or part of it, such as the convention center – is rented out for a certain period of time, the monitors automatically switch to the event presentation the client has previously supplied. This timing function is an integral part of the friendlyway composer software.
 
The operator can control the four monitors in the public area individually and, if necessary, even provide them with different contents and customised timing schemes. Event announcements can thus be spatially assigned to their respective areas in the building.
 
The advantage of the relatively autonomous operation of the displays and stands is that content need be uploaded to the integrated PCs only once, after which all they require is a power supply.
 
A wireless network connection is also being considered as the hall, the lobby, and particularly the convention centre, will soon be fitted with WLAN access points. No problems are expected in this regard, as the stands are fitted with standard presentation PCs.
 
The software is based on a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What Your Get) concept, meaning that you can see what the final version will look like while working on it.
 
Source files (such as text, images,videos, pictures etc.) are integrated into the project by dragging and dropping them onto the composer interface. There is also a function for defining tickers. In addition, the display can be split so that several different subjects can be shown at the same time on a single monitor.
 
The system is managed by a system administrator. For the operator – in this case Mercatorhalle – this means that someone is responsible for administering the contents and compiling the shows with in-house information as well as any material provided by clients for each of the building’s digital signage displays. Once a show has been compiled, the friendlyway composer generates a dataset containing the designated content as well as any other information needed for playback. The control file created by the composer can be used to address any combination of monitors, according to requirements.

The digital signage system monitors are essentially self-sufficient display devices with integrated PCs, their own network address and friendlyway player software.
 
A server can be used for storing the content and control data and distributing it to the display devices. The displays connected to the network automatically download the required files via FTP (pull operation). As soon as the data is stored locally on the display system, the monitors work autonomously — even in the event of a network or server breakdown. The content and control data belonging to a show can also be combined into a so-called ‘package’ and sent directly by the administrator to one or several display devices, identified based on their IP addresses (push operation).
 
The player software recognises when new contents or control data has arrived, updates the internal memory without interrupting playback and seamlessly starts showing the modified presentation. The administrator computer can also be used to perform an FTP download regardless of existing time schedules.