Get It Right … Build It In

March 14, 2012 by Dave Haynes

I was walking through the Monte Carlo casino last week, heading to a video shoot (more on that in a coupla weeks), and enjoying the way the MGM properties in Las Vegas have executed on digital signage.

All of it, or damn near all of it, looks like it was always there.

The merits of building screens into the design or redesign of a retail or other facility has always been apparent, but if you really want to see this done at its best, have a walk around the Bellagio, Monte Carlo, NYNY, MGM or one of the other properties in that group the next time you end up in Las Vegas.

It really, really makes a big difference to spend the time to get the lines run, the walls cut out, metal fabricated and wood milled to build screens into whatever the setting may be. Screens descending from poles in a big box store are pretty much how it has to be. But there’s no real excuse for how many places we all see that just have TVs stuck on walls and posts, the cables not even properly hidden.

It’s not so much the big, splashy things in buildings, but the little stuff built into support columns and walls, like you see in this photo in the Monte Carlo.

I was chatting last week with Randy Dearborn, who runs all this stuff for MGM and got started in digital signage during the Hoover administration, and he said it has been a long process. But he also stressed it paid off.

I don’t know if Randy speaks very often, or even if gets asked to, but between automated, data-triggered content, in-house content creation services and a full grip on prucrement and execution, his team is about as sophisticated and complete as it gets in the sector. He has one person in charge of scheduling all the properties – indoors and on the big LED boards – because everything is driven by data.

 

  1. Josh Byrd says:

    We stayed at the Monte Carlo as well during DSE and I would agree. They definitely have taken the time to do it right. Digital Signage is too important to cut corners and do it wrong.

  2. Randy Dearborn will be speaking at CETW in San Francisco on Wednesday, March 28 in a session titled “Taking Back the Digital Signage Project: Keys to a Centralized Deployment”.

    As a courtesy to 16:9 readers, anyone interested in hearing Randy or the other incredible speakers (www.cetworld.com/speakers.asp) can register for a free conference pass at http://www.cetworld.com – just use VIP code CET53F

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