Skip to content

Ridgelogic, NEC visitor information boards boost revenue for Canadian museum

Manitoba Museum, located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is the province’s largest heritage centre, and is renowned for its combined human and natural heritage themes and vivid portrayal of Manitoba’s rich and colourful history.

The museum shares knowledge about Manitoba, the world and the universe through its heritage collections; interpretive galleries; exhibitions; publications; on-site and outreach programs; live, interactive planetarium shows; and hands-on science gallery exhibits. As a multi-venue facility, Manitoba Museum was searching for a marketing solution to increase sales of multi-venue ticket packages while also improving the visitors’ experience.
The 3×2 video wall at the Manitoba Museum.

The technical and marketing team at Manitoba Museum was already familiar with digital signage as a communications medium and they determined a 3×2 video wall located at the admissions counter as the ideal solution for their communication goals. Although with so many options to choose from, they immediately contacted the professional audio video experts at Evolution Presentation Technologies, a RidgeLogic Select Reseller Partner with five offices across western Canada, to help them identify the appropriate hardware and software and to perform the installation.

Evolution Presentation Technologies recommended professional-grade LCD displays from NEC Display Solutions because their built-in TileMatrix technology allows various video wall configurations to be set up using the on-screen controls. For software to develop multimedia messages and play them back, SceneStudio Pro was selected because it provides sophisticated multimedia output without the associated cost or complexity, making it simple for the museum’s marketing team to maintain the system.

With a single SceneStudio Pro media player Manitoba Museum virtually divided the design surface into various configurations to create visually appealing output. Messages seamlessly shift from display of one message across the entire video wall to treating each column of displays with discreet content and then each display with its own message. When featuring admission pricing, three displays are used to each show a different venue’s admission price; another display features multi-venue package deals; and the other two displays promote an audio tour and a featured exhibit. Promotion of special exhibits and events can be displayed on a column of two displays or across the entire video wall.

Located at the admission desk the video wall is getting noticed by visitors and improving sales. Rental of headphones for the audio tour tripled after promoting them on one of the six displays. This is important because audio-aided tours greatly enhance the visitor’s experience and increase the probability of a return visit and word-of-mouth advertising. When the video wall was installed, Manitoba Museum also revamped their multi-venue pricing plan. The combination of the new pricing plan and promotion on the video wall resulted in a 42 percent uplift of multi-venue ticket sales, providing a valuable increase of revenue for the not-for-profit organization.
“The presentations on the video wall are very powerful and they had an immediate impact on visitor behavior and our business,” said Javier Schwersensky, director of marketing, Sales & Programs.

The Manitoba Museum marketing team updates messages once a week and they are very pleased with the immediate nature of message updates versus static posters.