Back in June of 2009, I blogged about the first video billboard in Times Square and predicted that they’d soon be seen up and down the Great White Way.
Well, today, three years later, I’m blogging about another digital installation that’s sprung up that I also predict will soon be above every theater in town.
Introducing, the video marquee!
It’s above The Music Box right now, advertising the new Teresa Rebeck/Katie Holmes play Dead Accounts.
It’s hard to get the gist of its impact in this photo, so make sure you take a stroll down 45th St to see it pop in person.
Because pop it does.
And, no more expense of changing the physical sign every time a new show moves in/out.
So in the next two to three years, I’d expect these to have popped up all over town.
(Got a comment? I love ‘em, so comment below! Click here then scroll down to say what’s on your mind!)
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4 Responses to The future of marquees is here.
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I was working at the music box last week, and I thought the same thing about the Marquee. Pretty damn cool. Then I came in around 7:30am, when all the Marquees are still turned off. And while a print billboard with it’s lights off is just a darker billboard, a video marquee turned off is just a black screen. I wonder if they will leave it on 24 hours?
I of two camps on this. 1-I think it opens up some great opportunities for creative advertising, but 2-leds can get to be an eyesore, and it’s power that didn’t really need to be wasted in such a way. Also, wore this may be minute, led billboards mean no union workers employed to do changeover…
There’s already a digital marquee at the New Amsterdam for MARY POPPINS. That one is the first one. Been there for at least a year.
…and because they can generate revenue when you sell ad space on them.Union workers will do something else when the old boards have gone away (imagine if the Pony Express had been unionized.).”Wasted power?” Been to Vegas lately? Leave ‘em on 24/7! It’s not a waste if we deem it a worthy usage.