Local stadia continue to adopt the latest generation of digital full colour LED displays

Football, rugby and other clubs up and down the country are undergoing a quiet revolution when it comes to adopting the latest generation of digital full colour LED displays, and it’s no longer just the big league teams that are now buying into this technology.

Over recent weeks, LED Synergy has installed displays at Aldershot, Dover, Stevenage, Crawley and Salisbury football clubs, typically taking around a month from confirmation of order through to final commissioning, and it has a fair number of other similar orders in the pipeline.

The technology has progressed significantly over recent years, making digital colour displays a cost effective option for providing information to the supporters in the stadium. In many cases the clubs also offer advertisers an opportunity to buy slots on the board to run their own animated promotions and this means the hardware quickly pay for itself and then go on to provide a good source of additional revenue to the club.

Full colour displays of a metre in height and five metres in length are proving to be the most popular but they can be supplied to meet any particular size requirements. Each display is driven from a connected PC using a simple software programme that is also supplied during the installation. In addition to the traditional scoreboard function, the boards are typically used to provide information on future club events, fixtures, news, traffic details, and even personalised information like birthday wishes and club raffle prize winners.

Geoff Cain, Commercial Director at Salisbury stated: “The new colour display has gone down well with our supporters, and from a commercial point of view, generated great interest from Club Sponsors.” Ewan Dunlop, Crawly Town Commercial Manager added: “LED Synergy was very helpful and made the whole process simple and the board is living up to expectations.”

“The interactive nature of these colour LED displays means that the supporters look at them far more frequently during a match and also take in much more of the information being displayed, which is what makes them a powerful information delivery and advertising medium,” explained Jeremy Harwood of LED Synergy. “We’ve also received a number of comments via the clubs about spectators that are either hard of hearing or profoundly deaf saying that they feel more included as until now much of this information was previously only broadcast over the club’s PA system.”

Jeremy Harwood concluded: “Our cost effective package and installation service means that clubs can be up and running relatively quickly. We also regularly provide advice on how to achieve the best results for advertising content and the additional revenue this can generate for the clubs can quickly pay for all the equipment required.”