In June, Canadian advertising firm Astral Out-of-Home, a division of Bell Media, announced the debut of a gigantic digital screen near Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square (already a hub for signage of all kinds, having been designated by the municipal government as one of the city’s special sign districts).
At more than 7.9x57.3m (26x188ft), the light-emitting diode (LED) billboard tops 454 m2(4,888 sf). It may not quite be Canada’s largest outdoor digital screen—that record apparently belongs to the 557.4-m2 (6,000-ft) screen mounted right across the street, above the Eaton Centre’s Forever 21 store—but it does seem to be the longest horizontal one and, for that matter, the largest contoured one, as it ‘wraps’ around the corner of the former Hard Rock Café with a three-sided curved shape. This configuration increases out-of-home (OOH) advertisers’ exposure by facing southbound and eastbound pedestrians and traffic.
“This digital wrap represents a major addition to our portfolio,” says Karine Moses, Astral’s president. “The sheer scale of the screen, which synchronizes full-motion video with a dedicated static face, provides flexibility for advertisers to deliver a powerful story and bring their brands to life.”
OOH advertisers are certainly drawn to the area. Located at one of Canada’s busiest intersections, Yonge-Dundas Square sees daily traffic of more than 93,000 pedestrians and 30,000 vehicles and co-hosts annual arts festivals like North By Northeast (NXNE), Luminato and Nuit Blanche. The Eaton Centre also contributes to a total of more than 52 million visitors per year.
Answering the call
Plans for the giant screen predate Astral’s involvement, as it was seen as a way to upgrade the rooftop space previously occupied by a combination of printed and digital faces that were operated by Cieslok Media.By the time Astral finalized its acquisition of Cieslok earlier this year, a request for proposals (RFP) had already been issued in 2016 for the all-digital structure.
One of the companies that answered the RFP was Media Resources International (MRI), an integrated sign manufacturing and maintenance company in Oakville, Ont. Its portfolio already featured extensive related experience, such as the construction and installation of a 418-m2 (4,500-sf) three-sided full-motion LED display for the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Ont.
“We got the job and started to work with Cieslok in advance of the acquisition by Astral,” explains Keith Edwards, chief operating officer (COO) for MRI. “Then we continued to work on the design with Astral before fabricating and installing the screen.”
“MRI was selected because they were the best company to take this project from concept to completion,” says Kevin Martens, Astral’s director of construction. “We worked with them hand-in-hand from design to final installation to meet our deadline.”
“Although our customer changed midway, the specs stayed the same,” says Jeff Rushton, co-owner, president and CEO of MRI.
A structural issue
One of the challenges of replacing Cieslok’s multiple boards with a unified digital face was addressing the increased weight load on the heritage building, which is slated to become a flagship Shoppers Drug Mart store later this year. Compared to the previous rooftop signs, which were 6.4 to 6.7 m (21 to 22 ft) in height, the screen would be not only heavier, but also taller and, thus, would need to endure a higher wind load.
Cieslok worked in advance with the municipal government and its heritage preservation department to acquire the necessary permits to alter the building.
“The process involved two years of backroom discussions before they got the go-ahead,” says Edwards. “Once they had developed early drawings of the sign, an architect developed a plan to put in a more pragmatic sign structure and an outside engineering firm determined what specifically needed to be done.”
Cieslok hired Enseicom, a sign, billboard and street furniture manufacturer based in Lachine, Que., to fabricate a steel structure for the purpose.
“Then we put the new steel structure atop the building to support the screen,” says Rushton. “The building’s existing substructure was also enhanced so it could support an additional 35,380 kg (78,000 lb). We built the sign around that base structure.”
The older signs were removed from the roof in March and the new steel structure was installed in April.
Pixel by pixel
As for the LEDs, MRI sourced surface mount diode (SMD) products with a 10-mm (0.39-in.) pixel pitch from a manufacturing operation in which it is a joint venture partner.
“We had someone overseeing every single LED,” says Rushton. “You need integrated binning of LEDs to achieve uniformity of colours. And for that, you have to ensure control of the whole supply chain. This is especially important with a tight timeline. Once we got our own go-ahead earlier, we had to build everything as quickly as possible.”
The scale of the fabrication process was massive. The screen comprises an array of nearly 4.7 million pixels, each of which combines a trio of red, green and blue (RGB) LEDs with a white lens for optimal light diffusion.
“The very tight pixel pitch represented the further evolution of what we had done in the past,” says Rushton. “We had to put the modules together one-by-one to make sure they fit perfectly. We couldn’t be ‘off’ in any direction by even 1 mm (0.04 in.). Fortunately, the fabrication process went well, because we had already done a lot of planning.”
The pixels were assembled into tiles, each measuring a little over 0.09 m2 (1 sf), with 1,024 pixels per tile. Then those tiles were further collected into subsections of cabinets.
“The screen is so big,” says Edwards, “even with its rounded corner, it took up most of our floor.”
The system for controlling the LEDs, also proprietary to MRI, is almost fully redundant.
“I come from a software background and we applied networking principles to this board to optimize uptime,” says Rushton. “We have set up a pretty sophisticated control room with high-end computing equipment to ensure it always continues to run. If anything goes wrong in terms of fan speed, the temperature of each module, etc., we get an alert on our smartphones, so we know right away. And we have mobile technicians who can fix it in an hour or two.”
Raising the rooftop
Finally, the on-site installation of the screen began in late May, shortly after the Hard Rock Café shut down permanently at the end of its lease.
“The screen was divided into sections and we shipped out three at a time,” says Edwards. “These were then connected together on-site at night. There are three sections facing west to Yonge, one corner section facing northwest and nine facing north to Dundas Square.”
The work took eight nights straight, with all hands on deck.
“Trying to meet a fixed installation date for something this complicated is crazy,” says Rushton. “I’m very proud of the employees from all of our divisions who came together to engineer and install this landmark digital display.”
Specifically, the sign went live on June 5, just in time for Warner Bros. Canada to promote the June 9 release of its hit movie, Wonder Woman. Another initial advertiser was Energy Brands, which promoted its Vitamin Water product line. Both used the unique shape of the board creatively, with content developed and laid out for each of its sections.
“I was very happy with the ad agencies’ work,” says Rushton. “The Vitamin Water content looked fantastic!”
“Overall, our clients are very satisfied with the impact and overall appearance of the display,” agrees Astral’s Martens.
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