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Denver Broncos mile-high on digital menu boards at Sports Authority Field

The digital signage team in charge of putting in digital menu boards at the home of the Broncos breaks down the deployment.

May 17, 2013 by Christopher Hall — w, t

Sports Authority Field at Mile High — home to the NFL's Denver Broncos — is planning to go after a future Super Bowl, and is upgrading its digital signage as part of the effort of improving the overall stadium experience.

While stadium executives say the ongoing $30 million renovations aren't tied directly to the city's and the arena's Super Bowl bid, having the most up-to-date fan experience possible certainly isn't going to hurt.

In addition to larger high-definition LED video boards and ribbon displays in the stadium bowl and digital signage screens in the stadium concourses, Sports Authority Field concessionaire Centerplate also is upgrading the stadium's concession digital menu boards with the help of Ping HD.

Denver-based Ping HD is deploying more than 220 digital menu boards mounted in three-screen arrays in concession stands throughout the main concourse, the club and suite levels of the stadium, the company said. For fans, that means streaming video during waits at concessions, clarity of content and menus that are themed to events, whether it's a Broncos game, Denver Outlaws Lacrosse, concerts or any other stadium event, Ping said.

Ping HD's Kevin Goldsmith, the director of digital media operations who put the solution together for the Broncos; Tyler Dolph, national account manager for the company; and Karen Peraza, marketing solutions specialist, recently got together to talk to DigitalSignageToday.com about the digital menu board project.

"All around Sports Authority Field, there are renovations going on throughout the entire stadium," Goldsmith said in the interview. "Digital menu boards form part of that, and, based on their requirements there, we've made provisions to include an additional media screen that can be used for sponsorship information and IPTV and that would be tying into the cisco StadiumVision network as well."

The Web-based solution allows the digital signage screens to be remotely updated by Centerplate with a few mouse clicks from anywhere, Ping said.

The new installation at Sports Authority Field follows recent projects by Ping HD at Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies; AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants; Candlestick Park, home of the San Francisco Giants; and The Palace of Auburn Hills, home of the Detroit Pistons.

"We have found the service standard and approach taken by Ping HD to be a worthwhile investment for Centerplate, our clients and fans," Centerplate CMO Bob Pascal said in an announcement of the project. "Previous projects with Ping HD at Candlestick Park and AT&T Park (both in San Francisco) demonstrated the technology's ability to improve the fan experience — through improved ordering speed, engaging content during wait times and better sales through increased visibility."

Fitting out concession stands throughout a massive structure like Sports Authority Field is a significant undertaking, and Ping's team talked during the interview about some of the challenges and lessons that kind of deployment offers.

One of the biggest challenges, Goldsmith said, is simply making sure all of the necessary utilities are in place, from power to data, to run the screens and get the content to them.

It's also key to identify all the project's key stakeholders and making sure they're all on the same page, not just on the kind of screens and mounts, but on the content to be displayed as well, Dolph said.

"It's important to find out who your end-customer is and make sure that all parties involved are happy with the solution you're providing," he said.

The three-screen array is a popular one with Ping customers, typically with one screen used for food items, another used for beverages and the third in the middle showing ads, Goldsmith said. The ads in a stadium are usually for future events, displaying sponsors' messages and for directing patrons to other cost centers in the stadium, such as team merchandise shops, Goldsmith said, and the dynamic capabilities of digital signage are critical for that.

"The animation on the board is really important; it's in human nature to pay attention to moving information, going back to primitive days where you're always on the lookout for predators," he said.

And digital menu boards are becoming more popular as a solution for stadiums and venues because they increase the speed of transactions, provide a significant sales uplift, help with inventory management (say, by automatically removing hot dogs if vendors run out, or cutting the cost of peanuts if vendors have too many), and allow for automatic cutoff of alcohol sales at predetermined points of the game.

"A lot of our customers have seen the benefit of DMBs, not just because they look a whole lot better but the impact that they have on the buying decision," Goldsmith said.

Digital signage also provides a more customer-centric experience and create an atmosphere of excitement for customers, Peraza said.

As for key considerations to keep in mind when planning a deployment like this, the Ping team said it all goes back to the basics and starting well to finish well.

"The main thing that I try and get across when I start these early discussions is really, 'What are you looking to achieve?'" Goldsmith said. "And then from there that helps build a solution and helps determine the type of technology going in. The last thing we'd want is to then propose a solution that's not delivering what the customer actually wants.''

Learn more about digital menu boards.

(Image of another sports venue's digital menu boards courtesy of Ping HD.)

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