SOLUTIONSERIES. How AV Innovation Is Artfully Adding to Museum Attractions. Commercial Integrator 2016 EH Publishing

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1 SOLUTIONSERIES How AV Innovation Is Artfully Adding to Museum Attractions Commercial Integrator 2016 EH Publishing

2 How AV Innovation Is Artfully Adding to Museum Attractions Portable planetariums, pro-sumer products and social media help museums earn bigger bang for fewer bucks By Dan Daley With high-profile events like Art Basel in Miami, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of urban art crawls, it s not surprising that the art museum sits atop that category, comprising 42 percent of the museum segment, according to an industry analysis by market researcher IBIS. But the reality is that museums in general have been experiencing growth in recent years. That same study finds that museums of all types generated $10.6 billion in revenue last year and that number is expected to continue to grow at nearly 2 percent a year. Art museums may dominate, but historical and science & technology museums, with market shares of 22 percent and 19.7 percent, respectively, make up a substantial part of this expanding category and these categories are especially reliant on AVL (audio, video, lighting) systems for visitor engagement and differentiation. Commercial Integrator How AV Innovation Is Artfully Adding to Museum Attractions 2

AV is playing a more critical role in museum displays, demonstrated by 40 Nixplay TFT picture frames for Saturday Night Live: The Exhibition in Manhattan, integrated by Design Electronics.

3 AV is playing a more critical role in museum displays, demonstrated by 40 Nixplay TFT picture frames for Saturday Night Live: The Exhibition in Manhattan, integrated by Design Electronics. WITH HIGH-PROFILE EVENTS like Art Basel in Miami, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of urban art crawls, it s not surprising that the art museum sits atop that category, comprising 42 percent of the museum segment, according to an industry analysis by market researcher IBIS. But the reality is that museums in general have been experiencing growth in recent years. That same study finds that museums of all types generated $10.6 billion in revenue last year and that number is expected to continue to grow at nearly 2 percent a year. Art museums may dominate, but historical and science & technology museums, with market shares of 22 percent and 19.7 percent, respectively, make up a substantial part of this expanding category and these categories are especially reliant on AVL (audio, video, lighting) systems for visitor engagement and differentiation. DOMES HOME TO VIDEO INNOVATION Integrators are looking to use AV systems in unique ways, as museum clients look to stand out in a crowded market. For instance, a dash of retro is evidenced in installations that are using variations on Buckminster Fuller s dome shapes from the mid last century as projection surfaces. Intended for the Corpus Christi Museum of Science & History but initially set up in the warehouse of Mad Systems in Orange County, Calif., a 14-foot negative-pressure dome acts as an inviting isolation chamber for an intimate planetarium-type exhibit. Used increasingly for semi-permanent situations, negative-pressure inflated domes utilize a fan to extract air from between the external structural envelope of the dome and the inner fabric envelope, creating negative pres- Commercial Integrator How AV Innovation Is Artfully Adding to Museum Attractions 3

4 sure that causes the envelope to conform perfectly to the shape of the dome and act as a projection screen. Mad Systems is using Full Dome s products for this, a brand they rep on the West Coast. We ve been using these systems for museum exhibits because you can achieve a planetarium effect in a small space, or a video-game environment, like a flight simulator, at a relatively low cost, says Maris Ensing, president of Mad Systems, who adds it s becoming popular for corporate presentations and product launches at events. You don t have to commit architecturally to an exhibit installation, though they can be permanent if you want them to be. They re excellent for putting multiple small projectors into and then blending images. In the Corpus Christi installation, which is intended to be permanent, Mad Systems has installed three small Vivitar projectors that hang off the rim of the dome s exoskeleton. This way you don t need a truss, and instead of the traditional planetarium approach of using a large projector with a mirror, you can use several smaller, edgeblended projectors on the perimeter and get complete coverage without taking up any floor space. INTRICATELY INTEGRATING MORE AUDIO Integrating audio into museum exhibits is increasingly taking advantage of the wide range of tools for pro audio in general. Products like focused-sound pendant speakers, like those made by Dakota Audio and Brown Innovations widely used in museum environments to keep sound localized to individual exhibits, are sharing the design process with hardware like beam-steerable columnar line-array speakers and spherical transducers, and predictive-acoustical modeling software like AFMG s EASE and Bose s Modeler. More and more, we re using a combination of software modeling and specialized speaker systems for museum sound, to keep it localized and full spectrum, explains Ensing, seeking maximum synergy with the physics of the naturally occurring Haas Effect: when two identical sounds are presented in close succession they will be heard as a single coherent sound. But, he stresses, they are also trying to get the modeling and other audio design aspects to take place earlier in the overall exhibit-design process, if not the entire museum solution. Essentially, what you are fighting is sound bleed, and the later the audio is taken into account in a design, the more difficult it is to achieve very high degrees of sound isolation, he says. We re trying to make [exhibit] designers more aware of this. PRO-SUMER PRODUCTS FIND A PLACE Museums are chronically budget challenged, but that hasn t restrained the ever-higher expectations that visitors and curators impose on them. Khalil Williams, general manager at Design Electronics in Niagara Falls, Ontario, says those conflicting realities often compel the use of pro- Commercial Integrator How AV Innovation Is Artfully Adding to Museum Attractions 4

The International Civil Rights Center & Museum sumer or consumer technologies to reconcile the buck with the bang. For a forthcoming Ripley s Believe It Or Not museum in Buffalo, N.Y.

5 The International Civil Rights Center & Museum sumer or consumer technologies to reconcile the buck with the bang. For a forthcoming Ripley s Believe It Or Not museum in Buffalo, N.Y., the company was considering the use of GoPro cameras for a gallery that electronically distorts visitors images. The alternative is HDMI broadcast-quality cameras at over $1,000 each, which is not in the budget, he explains. However, while the ubiquitous GoPros are popping up in a wide range of professional applications, their ability to operate reliably 24/7 has never been documented. It s one thing to trust them for a snowboard down a half pipe on an X Games broadcast but another to expect them to not miss a beat for a months-long exhibit run. But there are some products that have been proving themselves ready for prime time, such as Sharp s AQUOS flat screens, a pro-sumer version of which Williams says he has used in commercial installations in the past with good results and, he adds, at a fraction of the cost of a commercial screen. Another example is the use of 40 Nixplay TFT picture frames for Saturday Night Live: The Exhibition, which Design Electronics integrated and which opened in December in Manhattan. Used to display the prerecorded gag commercials the show is famous for, they re far more often found in homes as rotating displays for family vacation and graduation photos. Their viewing angle is limited, Williams concedes, but with so many small displays needed, they fit the bill at a very affordable cost (although he says they ordered 10 extra units, a fairly high percentage for back-ups). Another way consumer technology is impacting museum installations is the growing use of social media, which adds design and experiential possibilities before, during and after a visit. By using apps that Commercial Integrator How AV Innovation Is Artfully Adding to Museum Attractions 5

6 visitors can download before arrival, we can begin the engagement process early and establish a manageable level of expectation, says Williams. Apps can be synced with the museum s media servers and interactivity with the app on a visitor s smartphone via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi can be displayed on digital signage placed throughout a venue, creating a highly individualized loop in which visitors can play games and track their scores or progress. Selfies are becoming part of this, notes Williams. Instead of the picture at the end of the visit they walk way with a selfie that they can enjoy but that also promotes the museum, and the museum gets data they can use. The use of more consumer-level AV hardware in museums reflect a larger mindset that has become familiar in the post-vcr electronics world: when electronics break at home, we usually just throw them out and buy replacements, which are often better than the items they re replacing and even more cost effective. Tablets and picture frames used as video displays have come to be viewed as consumables now, says David Egner, vice president of museum services at Art Guild, a nationally based developer and fabricator of interfaces for museums such as the Martin Guitar Museum & Visitors Center and the International Civil Rights Center & Museum. The equation now is, you can use consumer-grade technology, which keeps getting better, though it s not designed to run 24/7 but which is very inexpensive; or you can choose high-grade commercial AV technology that won t break down but whose entry-level products cost two to four times as much as the consumer products. It s a choice, he adds, that AV integrators wouldn t have even considered until a few years ago, and it s one that budget-conscious museums increasingly seek. Egner says that his company argues for the commercial-grade products We don t want to have to deal with the warranty calls, he says but addresses the matter on a case-by-case basis, assessing whether a museum will be able to allocate a staffer to cover minimal maintenance tasks such as replacing a blown tablet in an exhibit. If they know how to set up a home theater system they get at Best Buy, then they re probably going to be all right [with consumer products], he concludes. If not, they need to go with professional commercial-grade products. By using apps... we can begin the engagement process early and establish a manageable level of expectation. Khalil Williams, Design Electronics MUSEUM-AS-CLASSROOM STRENGHTENS The relationship between schools and museums, as the leading destination for class trips, has always been close. Glenn Polly, president and CEO of VideoSonic Systems in New York City, thinks he s found a way to make the connection even tighter. A pilot project for the Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County on Long Island put an AV-equipped classroom in the museum itself. It s fitted with Samsung video displays that double as digital signage displays, via integrated media players, Vaddio cameras and a Crestron AM-100 AirMedia wireless gateway system. Commercial Integrator How AV Innovation Is Artfully Adding to Museum Attractions 6

Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County on Long Island complement traditional displays with AV. The idea, says Polly, was to create an extension of the school classroom into the museum.

7 Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center of Nassau County on Long Island complement traditional displays with AV. The idea, says Polly, was to create an extension of the school classroom into the museum. Students would enter the venue through the classroom, receive an orientation and then assignments from teachers related to the museum s resources, and then fan out to take pictures or record video on their own smartphones that would be played back wirelessly on the displays in the classroom where they would collaborate on and review their work. This was an experiment, but it worked so well that two other museums in the city have asked us to work up budgets for these kinds of classrooms, he says. He s specifying most of the same components used at the Holocaust Memorial, and offering a choice of the Crestron AM-100 or AMX Enzo for connectivity between smartphones and the classroom AV, and either projection or LCD video. It s really like a huddle room we d do for a corporate project, he says. But we re seeing a lot of potential for this in the museum market. For-profit or non-profit, the museum sector is becoming increasingly competitive, and clients are using AV technology to help reel in and more deeply engage visitors. Dan Moalli, senior vice president for business development at Technomedia Solutions, says the integration of personal mobile devices has become a favorite of museums for these purposes. BYOD is especially useful for museums that specialize in contemporary issues, like religion or free speech, where the content of exhibits may have to change frequently, he explains. Integrating social media into their exhibits gets the visitors involved, before they arrive, during their visit, and afterwards. DON T FORGET THE STORE Touchscreen displays have become more ubiquitous in recent years in museums. Mike Lutes, Louisville, Ky., branch manager for Cincinnatiarea Nor-Com, has seen them moving into the equally ubiquitous museum store. At the recently opened Jim Beam Urban Stillhouse in downtown Louisville, which demonstrates and documents the Ken- Commercial Integrator How AV Innovation Is Artfully Adding to Museum Attractions 7

8 tucky bourbon s process and history, for example, the retail area at the end of the tour uses a pair of 55-inch touchscreens that let visitors page through products and recipes that they can purchase or have ed to them (in the process adding to the venue s own database of information). A webcam integrated into the displays also lets them take a picture of themselves that can then be printed onto a label attached to a bottle of bourbon. Lutes says the concept will likely be rolled out to other similar venues in the near future, and believes that museums will continue to embrace touchscreen technology as a revenue generator and data collector, to the point that they will become integral to museums economic strategies. The company is in the planning stages now for two pledging kiosks for the Smithsonian s Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., where 30-inch NEC multitouch displays will encourage and facilitate donations to the non-profit venue. Touchscreen technologies really draw people in, he says. Combined with social media and BYOD, I think we ll be seeing a lot more of this everywhere in museums and not just in the exhibits. THE FUTURE OF MUSEUM AV As the number of museums grows, the need to compete in a crowded market and draw consumer dollars away from other forms of entertainment augur increasing demand for AV. Technomedia s Moalli is already seeing a burgeoning business in fabricating self-contained, turnkey traveling exhibits that museums can be lent or rented to other venues, generating income and attention for their own home museums. All you need to add is power and a place to put it, he says. Egner at the Art Guild expects that museums will want to leverage their AV technology purchases across a greater range of applications, seeking better bang for their AV bucks. They ll want to use the same technology platform for multiple exhibits, he says. They want to see the AV costs become more of a one-time expense as they have to change exhibits and content more often. Museums, pressed by competition, increasingly want to emulate theme parks to some degree, though budget constraints assure that they ll fall short of that goal. Perhaps not by much, though. They ll never be Disney, says Egner. But with the technology the touchscreens, the big LED walls, the immersive sound, the motion sensors and show control that s becoming so much more affordable, they re getting a little closer. CI Commercial Integrator How AV Innovation Is Artfully Adding to Museum Attractions 8

Pufferfish 2015 PufferSphere RANGE

1 Pufferfish 2015 PufferSphere RANGE 2 About our company what we do Pufferfish develop dynamic digital display systems and offer a full range of media services to complement our products. Our mission is