Markets

AV technology has become a must-have for almost all modern theme parks and visitor attractions. “Whereas 30 years ago AV was relatively rare, it’s now rare not to have it in many parts of a major park or attraction,” says Kevin Murphy, senior vice-president of sales and business development at…

You may not find much cutting-edge AV in your local supermarket, because no one in their right mind goes there for a good time. But higher up the retail tree – in fashion and luxury goods, for example – it’s a different story. “Customers desiring mid- to high-quality products are…

Faced with the challenge of grabbing the attention of a public that would often rather be fiddling with its smartphone or tucked up in front of its home cinema, the response of museums, galleries and other heritage attractions is increasingly to acknowledge that if you can’t beat ’em, you’d better…

The days are long gone when all that was heard of concert audiences or sports spectators was a polite round of applause or a quick chorus of You’ll Never Walk Alone. “Most new stadiums are being designed and built as ‘smart’ stadiums, with fans and audiences expecting a more interactive…

A big hotel, it is often said, is a microcosm of life (“stuffed with human nature of extremely various kinds”, as Arnold Bennett put it), which makes it a particularly all-encompassing challenge for the AV industry. “Hotels differ from other types of space in that they’re essentially small communities with…

To paraphrase an old saw, when higher education sneezes, AV catches a cold. A combination of longstanding usage, sophisticated customers, mission-critical operation and fairly steady budgets has helped HE to become something of a bellwether market for AV. So, in these straitened times, should we start handing out the hankies?…

AV technology has become a critical tool for public services such as defence, transport management and the emergency services. “It’s extensively used in the public sector’s mission-critical and command-and-control environments,” says Eric Hénique, international sales vice-president at VuWall. “The ability for the AV technology to interact with the various data…

Remember the days when teachers were called Chalky and the height of technical sophistication was a roller blackboard? You may soon be the only one who does. “Schools today typically rely heavily on large display formats for day-to-day teaching,” says Adrian Robertson, director of education for Scotland at Kinly. “The…

No successful sports or entertainment venue today can afford to ignore the power of technology to engage audiences and fans, and pander to their predilections. “Today, every live performance, no matter how brilliant, risks being underpraised and attracting smaller audiences if no visual technology is deployed,” says Gergely Vida, CEO…

It is no exaggeration to say that AV is an essential component of many visitor attractions today. “Attractions are in direct competition with home entertainment options including video games, streaming services and social media, and to compete, they need a strong story and a ‘wow factor’ to capture guests,” says…