The Benefits of Digital Signage for Stadiums
When fans attend a stadium event, certain expectations come with the experience.
They want to be able to order food, find their way to their seat, stay up to date with the score, and enjoy the entire time. Digital signage can help with all of this and more.
Stadium digital signage is becoming increasingly important to provide a great fan experience. But it is not only the audience that benefits from this technology.
Stadium managers, sports teams, and concession vendors can use digital displays to unlock new opportunities for increased revenue, performance insights, and sales.
In this article, we will explore the different types of digital signage used in stadiums, how stadiums can use them to engage with fans, and other potential uses. We will also cover the critical considerations when using digital signage in a stadium environment.
How Can You Benefit from Investing in Digital Signage for Stadiums?
Digital signage for stadiums is a powerful tool for coordinating and communicating with large groups of people. It is beneficial for managing large, multi-purpose venues often subject to various events and activities.
Digital signage for stadiums can be used to reduce the challenges associated with running a stadium, providing a multifunctional solution that is beneficial for both practical and commercial purposes.
Digital signage provides a range of benefits by improving the stadium experience for the crowd, satisfying the needs of sponsors and advertisers, and allowing for more cost-effective and efficient management of stadium operations.
Digital signage also provides flexibility, allowing content to be changed quickly and easily to suit whatever event the stadium hosts, such as sporting events, concerts, or religious gatherings.
Let’s see how you can benefit from using digital signage for stadiums:
1. Better Vision, Better Entertainment
Digital screens for stadiums offers the clear benefit of broadcasting the event to all in attendance. Without digital screens, only the front few rows of the crowd could clearly see the action.
Digital screens allow those further back or higher up to get a good view of the event, whether a sporting event, a music concert, or any other event. Moreover, digital signage can also be used to provide entertainment during pauses or intervals in the event.
Digital signs, for example, can replay the best moments of a game or the most heated rivalry. This helps to keep the crowd entertained and engaged as they wait for the show to resume.
2. For Engagement and Alerts
Digital signage on these screens is an excellent tool for engaging crowds. Using a software solution, stadiums can display live tweets, selfies, group photos, and shout-outs from spectators. This amplifies the on-site experience. Digital displays can be used for emergency signaling, guiding people to all exits without triggering panic.
Electronic screens are the quickest way to send alerts or deliver vital information. For example, if someone needs to return to their car or report a bag left behind, the alerts can be sent as flashes or tickers on the digital display. It could also be a lovely romantic atmosphere for a surprise proposal!
Also, digital signage can be used to entertain the crowd during breaks in the action at a stadium event. For instance, at a football match, highlights of the team's biggest victories or the season's most exciting goals can be played on the screens to keep fans engaged.
3. Sponsorships and Advertising
Stadiums bring hundreds and thousands of people together in one place for extended periods, making them a ready-made audience for sponsors and advertisers.
Digital signage for stadiums is a one-time opportunity that businesses find immensely effective in creating brand awareness. It is also a great source of open-ended revenue for the venue.
People attending stadiums are already in the mindset to spend money, making it easier for advertisers to influence them with their marketing strategies and encourage spur-of-the-moment purchases. This makes stadiums a hot commodity, with brands willing to pay the highest price for the chance to reach a large audience.
The number of branding signs around sports facilities varies but typically includes signs for partners and associations. Printing multiple ad signs for partners and associations over many years can be pretty expensive. Several ticket, directional, schedule, informational, and advertisement signs may need to be posted at one stadium entrance.
These signs can be either letter boards, which require each letter to be manually changed, or printed signs that need to be regularly reprinted for accuracy.
The beauty of outdoor electronic message boards is that all these different types of signs can be condensed down to just a few digital displays or just one per stadium entrance. With weatherproof LED digital signs, content limitations become less of an issue.
4. Concession Sales
Concession stands at stadiums can often see a lot of activity and confusion during halftime periods and intermissions. Many concession stands place large digital signs advertising their current specials to attract customers.
These digital signs are easier to read from a distance than traditional static signs, and they help save time and effort by allowing for immediate changes when prices, events, or products change.
Digital signage also helps reduce the environmental impact of concession stands as it eliminates the need to print and discard new signs constantly.
5. Easy Navigation for Patrons
Attending a major event in a large stadium can be an overwhelming experience, especially when faced with noise, bright lights, large crowds, and general excitement.
With so many people coming and going, people can lose track of where they are in the stadium. To make the experience easier, many stadiums have begun to implement digital signage and other state-of-the-art wayfinding solutions.
GPS-controlled interactive roadmaps, which patrons can access via their digital devices, are a great way to make the event experience more navigable. Patrons can easily find their way through the crowd and to their seats, reducing confusion and helping to keep the event moving.
These applications can be used by stadium staff, such as security guards and ushers, allowing them to direct people more efficiently and speed up the process of getting everyone to their seats.
Digital signage also has the added benefit of being environmentally friendly, as it eliminates the need for printing and replacing physical signs whenever there is a price, event, or product change.
6. Additional Revenue Sources
Outdoor digital signage is a great way to roll out multiple messages more efficiently. Not only that, but these weatherproof signs also provide an opportunity for extra advertising.
Adding an advertisement to a looping video on an outdoor digital display doesn't cost anything. Even Fortune 500 companies are often willing to pay high prices for TV commercial spots at major sporting arenas.
Once your digital signage is operational, you may receive offers for ad placement on it.
7. Enhance Customer Experience
Installing dynamic digital signage displays is a great way to create enhanced and memorable customer service experiences. We live in a digital age, where almost everyone has a smartphone or other digital device.
When people come across creative displays, they want to share them so they can go viral. This is an ideal way to boost your brand awareness, as it enables customers to advertise your products and services in their own way.
8. Filling More Seats
Digital signage can help fill more seats in a stadium by providing clear and engaging visual information to visitors. Digital signage can be used to display advertisements, information about ticket prices and seating availability, and directions to the different parts of the stadium.
Stadium owners don't just want attendees to show up for the game once; they want them to keep coming back. To achieve this, they can use outdoor signs to promote upcoming games and ticket specials and strategically placed ticket kiosks to encourage more sales.
Banners attached to the stadium's front may not have the same level of pull, but strategically placing these signs and kiosks can help advertise to drivers in the area.
9. Enhanced Communication
Digital signage can be used to improve communication in stadiums in several ways. It can be used to display important information, such as emergency notifications and weather alerts, helping keep fans safe and informed.
For example, some digital signage software is connected to services like Accuweather and Google to provide weather updates. Digital signage can also be used to improve backend communication with players, coaching staff, and stadium personnel.
10. Save Money, Save The Environment
Digital signage can help stadiums save money and the environment in several ways. Firstly, it can be used to promote sponsorships and generate revenue, reducing the overall cost of hosting an event.
Stadiums typically need to use a lot of paper and plastic. They need fliers, banners, and all sorts of notices. These things destroy the planet. You can reduce paper and plastic waste by digitally displaying event information and notifications instead of using paper materials.
Finally, digital signage can also be used to reduce energy consumption by controlling lighting and temperature levels in the stadium and providing dynamic lighting controls based on movement detection and environmental and weather monitoring.
When it comes to stadiums, a giant display is a must-have to ensure that people in the upper rows have a clear view of what's going on. Digital signage lets you easily feed your screens with live feeds, real-time data, pre-made playlists, and more.
How to use Digital Signage for Stadiums
Digital signage is a major upgrade compared to traditional poster boards and printed signs. It is far more dynamic and can display videos, graphics, and a combination of media in vivid 4K and UHD resolutions.
These features make digital signage the perfect tool for stadiums to enhance the event-goers' experience and help things run more efficiently. Here are some of the best ways that stadiums can utilize digital signage to its fullest potential:
Jumbotrons and Video walls
People pay so much to get access to events in stadiums. Not every seat in the stadium would provide a clear view of the stage. Luckily, digital signage can help ensure everyone in the house can see the performers well by positioning large screens in the right places.
These large screens can be jumbotrons or video walls. They can show viewers highlights, game statistics, and other related content. The video walls create a more immersive experience for fans.
Digital Wayfinding
Digital wayfinding solutions such as wayfinding kiosks provide event attendees with an interactive map and guide to easily find their way to their seats and other destinations in a stadium.
These solutions show the quickest route to concession stands, bathrooms, water fountains, ticket sales booths, and other points of interest. Visitors can search terms like “food” to locate all the areas where they can buy something to eat.
Digital wayfinding helps reduce foot traffic and increase customer satisfaction by enabling people to reach their destination quickly and easily.
Menu Boards
Digital menu boards are a fantastic addition to any sports stadium or arena. Their graphic presentations are compelling and attention-grabbing, and they can provide dynamic menu options.
As stadium concessions offer more variety and choices in their food and beverage options, they can display them in an appealing way with digital signage.
Not only do digital menu boards make it easier for customers to choose from a range of items, but they also help boost sales and reduce costs associated with physical menus that often end up in the trash.
These highly dynamic digital menus allow venues to quickly remove sold-out items or promote hot drinks on chilly days.
Outdoor Schedules For Upcoming Games
Stadiums must make provisions for customers in the venue and also for potential customers. They can use digital signage to display schedules for upcoming games outside the stadium.
They can display game times and ticket specials to increase ticket sales, show info on the current game, or display promotional videos and images. They can also use digital signage to display custom messaging, such as team-related content or sponsorships, to engage their audience further.
Enhance A Powerful Experience With Stadium Digital Signage
Digital signage in sports stadiums and arenas can greatly enhance a fan's experience, from displaying headshots and stats of players to providing instant replays of the game.
This digital shift in sports viewing can bring in more attendees and increase sponsorships, which in turn helps to boost the venue's bottom line. If you haven't been to a sporting event for a while, it might be worth checking out how your home stadium is leveraging digital signage to create a truly immersive experience.