Grounds For Sculpture is a 42-acre sculpture park and museum in New Jersey. The Marketing and Guest Services teams struggled to effectively promote upcoming events to on-site visitors, advertise park attractions and amenities and most importantly, speed up ticket purchasing. They thought a digital signage solution would be a great way to drum up excitement for upcoming events.
The Tech Decision
Before implementing digital signage, the marketing team at Grounds For Sculpture had few means to advertise upcoming events i.e. brochures that sat at the Visitor Center lobby desk and their website.
The team was investing lots of time and money in developing and printing brochures, but they weren’t getting much flexibility in changing their message between updates.
What they needed was a way to communicate with their audiences in real time, to quickly bridge the gap between the online and on-site experience.
The marketing team also wanted a solution that would allow them to stay modern. Because a lot of the art is based in contemporary pop culture, the solution had to match the artistic ambiance in elegance and style.
The content displayed on the screens would need to be of the best quality and representative of the art that guests came to see.
The Guest Services staff also had their specific set of needs. They would often spend lots of time explaining ticket options to visitors and this slowed down the ticket purchasing process.
Because the staff was the sole source of information for visitors, it was not uncommon that they were repeating the same information for every single visitor.
To avoid this, they needed a “silent salesman” who would give guests all the information they needed, so that they were ready to purchase by the time they reached the front of the line.
The two teams worked closely with the Manager of Digital Media & Technology, Keith Pyatt, to find a digital signage solution for their challenges. The solution needed to be eye-catching yet easy to understand, in order to improve the on-site experience and first impression of the grounds.
The Solution
Grounds For Sculpture installed a 4-screen video wall in the lobby, powered by the Mvix digital signage platform.
The Mvix solution offered a robust platform for the Marketing and Guest Services teams to manage the displays and upload content directly from the main office.
The platform also provided advanced scheduling so the pricing and promotions could be customized and targeted for different days of the week, different exhibits and performances and different audiences.
Because the Mvix platform is cloud-based, the Keith Pyatt, Manager of Digital Media & Technology can monitor the content and video wall infrastructure from anywhere.
“Guest Services had a large messaging need and we sought a solution that would help us maintain our brand guidelines and welcome guests,” said Keith. “After 5 minutes into the Mvix software demo, we knew instantly it was the right fit. We wanted to stop [the consultant] and tell him ‘Yes! We’re Sold!’”
The video wall content takes full advantage of the four horizontal 4K displays. Beautiful full-color aerial shots of the sculpture park stretch across the screens. This transitions into videos of performers and slides with pricing information for guests.
Installing the 4-screen, 4K video wall enabled them to easily display promos of park features & events and pricing. With advanced calendar-based scheduling, this content could be customized and targeted for different days of the week, different exhibits and performances and different audiences. The 4K video wall also added visual appeal to the lobby, creating a great first impression with guests. As a result of the video wall, the park noted faster transaction times and increased ticket sales, increased attendance and interest in park events and reduced printing costs as brochures were replaced by the video wall.
The Impact
Grounds For Sculpture staff has noticed an increased interest in park events, while simultaneously speeding up ticketing.
The Marketing and Guest Services teams are getting substantial benefits from the new video wall.
Perceived wait times have reduces significantly, while ticket purchasing is faster. Guests are getting all of the information they need from the video wall and are ready to purchase by the time they reach the front of the line.
Overall, the ticketing process had become more efficient and marketing messages are more sticky, with high retention rates.
The need for paper brochures has also been eliminated, which has saved costs and freed up the Marketing team to dedicate their efforts to other marketing activities. Essentially, the digital signs replaced existing marketing collateral.
Keith, an experienced videographer in his own right, often contributes his own 30-second video promos to the content mix to captivate audiences with shots of the park. He finds that videos of past performances and shots panning over various art installations are very attractive to guests.
“Undoubtedly we get compliments about the display all the time,” he said. “And we work hard to make it finessed and beautiful.”
The video wall powered by Mvix has given Grounds for Sculpture the perfect communications solution. It has empowered Grounds For Sculpture to expand the impact of their messaging and captivate visitors in a way they had not been able to before.
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