London Stadium at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Gets Huge @Daktronics Billboard

Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief

London Stadium at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has selected Daktronics (NASDAQ-DAKT) to design, manufacture and install a new 1,128-square-meter, curved LED video display above the entrance to their stadium.

Queen Elizabeth Park1

This new signage is slightly tilted toward the ground to welcome people to events held at the stadium as well as provide ample opportunities to promote upcoming events and acknowledge stadium sponsors.

London Stadium Chief Executive Linda Lennon CBE said “The LED video display will serve to inform and entertain our guests while delivering considerable value to our commercial partners, event owners and community groups. Our challenge now is to use the screen to its full capability by displaying great content that further enhances the experience of sports fans, concert goers and corporate guests.”

The massive marquee measures 13.9 meters high by 81.2 meters wide providing a spectacular digital canvas with flexibility to highlight a plethora of messages to people attending events or passing by the stadium. Featuring a 15HD pixel layout, the display is capable of brightness levels to cut through direct sunlight while providing imagery with great contrast and colour depth.

Ewan Prentice, Daktronics sales representative said “The confidence shown in Daktronics to deliver a never-been-done-before installation and design is truly humbling and I am very confident all stakeholders will be rewarded with a spectacular result. Not only is the screen more than 1,000 square meters in size, it is also curved and being installed onto a cone-shaped stadium structure, and tilted forward.

He continued “Daktronics designed the uniquely-angled display to appear horizontal along the top and bottom, and to appear vertical at each end. Hours and hours of engineering expertise will result in a truly unique outcome which Daktronics, partners and stadium stakeholders can be very proud of, and further highlights Daktronics as the world leader in LED display solutions.”

With the tilted nature of the display, content created in a traditional manner would look stretched out and curved. Daktronics worked to create templates and content creation guidelines to help the venue and their creative team produce great looking content that accounts for the natural curve of the display.

Rahman Amin, Daktronics project manager said “The unique aspects of the digital screen made it very interesting and exciting. Daktronics appointed long-term partner EDS, who was responsible for the fabrication and installation of the strengthening and secondary steel as well as the display itself, delivered the highest standard and completed the install on time”.

The installation uses Daktronics Venus Pro control suite to provide the ultimate flexibility in scheduling and changing messages and content. The interface combines functionality with ease of use to make powerful control solution with great user experience.

London Stadium was built to host London 2012, the Stadium at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park was re-named London Stadium in preparation for legacy use by West Ham United Football Club, UK Athletics, World Rugby League and global touring artists seeking to stage music concerts in a world-class setting. In 2017, London Stadium will host Premier League football, Guns N’ Roses, Depeche Mode, Robbie Williams, IAAF World Athgletics and the World ParaAthletic Championships.

Despite some claims that this install is the ‘largest LED video feature in Europe’ it is actually dwarfed by the Tauron Arena, Kraków, Poland, which at 5,100sqm is 4.5 times bigger and the digital billboard on the Third Ring Road in Moscow (see complete list here). We therefore make it third largest in Europe and number 25 in the global list.


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