Digital Signage: Holt Renfrew’s towering video walls

by all | 9 April 2014 1:30 pm

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By Peter Saunders
Gridcast Media, a digital signage consultancy in Richmond Hill, Ont., recently partnered with light-emitting diode (LED) display manufacturer NanoLumens to design two towering video walls for a Holt Renfrew department store in Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre.

The high-end retailer’s redesigned indoor façade includes six 8.8. x 0.9-m (29 x 3-ft) NanoSlim flat displays, which function together as a pair of three-display arrays, on either side of the entrance. Using Scala digital signage software provided by Toronto-based Dot2Dot Communications, their on-screen imagery showcases the latest fashion trends and seasonal campaigns. Holt Renfrew can arrange content to run on each individual column or span across the entire digital canvas.

The installation represents one of the largest indoor retail digital displays anywhere in Canada, using more than 1.5 million LED packages. The vision was to both reflect the architecture of the redesigned store—which, at 11,148 m² (120,000 sf), is twice as large as before—and enliven it, garnering deeper interest from shoppers walking by.

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Testing technologies
Gridcast had worked with Holt Renfrew in the past on a variety of digital signage projects, including an interactive screen at Yorkdale, an LED panel system for two new ‘hr2’ concept stores and touch screens for three stores in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.

“We were originally referred to Holt Renfrew by a friend of mine who used to program their point-of-sale (POS) systems,” says Shawn O’Brien, founder, president and CEO of Gridcast. “Now he works for us.”

Previous experience with Oxford Properties Group, which runs Yorkdale, also came in handy.

“I knew what they would be willing to let us do in the space,” says O’Brien. “You do need approvals from the landlord, after all.”

So, before choosing to partner with Dot2Dot and NanoLumens, the consultancy conducted a technology review and proof-of-concept to determine the best fit for the job.

“There was a somewhat confined area designed for the screens and, since construction had already begun, we had to make it work,” says O’Brien. “You can’t cut a screen in half! So, we compared technologies that would be viable there. We brought in a number of video wall panels, digital signage ‘cubes’ and LED arrays to test them out.”

Levelling light
The client was concerned about screen visibility in the well-lit atrium, so O’Brien’s team also brought light testing equipment to the site, then replicated the same levels back at Gridcast’s facility.

“At this size of display, you really have to consider pixel pitch based on where people see it from,” says O’Brien. “Holt Renfrew wanted a big, powerful effect. Going with LEDs accomplished that. And then we pumped up the brightness just to be safe.”

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Attracting attention
Shortly after the video walls debuted, Holt Renfrew commissioned Montreal-based Moment Factory—renowned around the world for large-scale multimedia projections—to create special content for the Christmas shopping season.

“It’s important to always be fresh,” says O’Brien. “We encourage our clients not to stick with a mould. When you have a huge display, especially, you have a responsibility to do something awesome with it!”

Further, the renovated store is intended to serve as a prototype for new and redesigned Holt Renfrew locations to come.

In the meantime, the video walls were nominated and named among the finalists for the 2014 Digital Signage Expo (DSE) Apex Awards, which honour innovation in digital signage project deployments. As announced on February 12 at the annual DSE in Las Vegas, Nev., Gridcast won a silver award in the retail category.

The project also won a 2014 Association for Retail Environments (ARE) Design Award in the in-store communications category. It was presented on March 18 during Global Shop, a retail design and shopper marketing trade show, also in Las Vegas.

With files from Gridcast Media and NanoLumens. For more information, visit www.gridcast.ca[5] and www.nanolumens.com[6].

Source URL: https://www.signmedia.ca/digital-signage-holt-renfrews-towering-video-walls/

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