Projects: Tourism Vancouver Opens Digitally-Focused Flagship Centre

July 15, 2013 by Dave Haynes

Tourism Vancouver, which is the tourism authority for that awesome (when sunny) city on Canada’s west coast, downsized its main downtown visitor facility this spring and wanted to add digital to drive information and also the ticketing for its many, many member destinations and attractions.

The result is a really nice combination of a dominating feature video wall, customer-focused panels behind a counter, and an overall design where things all fit.

(Disclosure: Preset worked with Tourism Vancouver on the objectives and strategy at the start of this project, what seems way back when in January).

The project uses Scala and was put together by 10Net in Vancouver, with help from partner Dot2Dot in Toronto.

Here’s the release:

As a business association that represents over 1,000 members made up of the city’s restaurants, hotels, and featured attractions like Stanley Park and Granville Island, Grouse Mountain and Capilano Suspension Bridge, Tourism Vancouver’s flagship centre is a destination found in the heart of the city.

“Our goal was to create an experience that would encourage tourists to easily seek out and act on all that the city has to offer,” states Ted Lee, CFO & VP, Experience Vancouver at Tourism Vancouver. “10net’s expertise and valuable insight has made all the difference with executing this project—the new visual communications, audio, and overall energy and experience generated in the new centre is something for all Vancouverites and British Columbians to be proud of for sure.”

The network of screens is powered using Scala Content Manager with several customized Scala scripts written by 10net to bring the vision to life. A custom built 9 output media player running 1080p on each output drives the impressive 3×3 video wall at a true 5760×3240 pixel resolution, while another 6 output player drives the 22 foot long vertical array of LCD panels at a true 11520×1080 pixel resolution. Content can be displayed in any configuration for ultimate flexibility, however full resolution content across the entire 3×3 video wall has, by far, the greatest visual impact.

Across all screens, dynamic real-time content is prevalent. Local weather, multi-day part content, special offers, discounted day-of tickets, and an array of pre-bundled, themed experiences to suit any traveler’s needs. Through using interactive touch screens, visitors are able to conveniently preview menus of local restaurants, make reservations or purchase tickets on-the-spot.

Moving forward, 10net will incorporate additional functionality to dynamically play content based on the weather, display events from TVAN’s scheduling system, and take over ambient audio based on the content playing.

I like the living feature wall at the entry, and the wide vertical sweep at the ticketing counter.

Great client. They realized they needed advice, used it, and built off it.