The largest directive audio Sound Shower installation in the world can now be found in the Paradise Forum in Birmingham, UK.

The recently redeveloped Paradise Forum is a walkway that forms a natural path through the heart of Birmingham, England’s second biggest city. In addition to being a walkway, Paradise Forum is a place to shop and eat and is also the number one meeting point in the city. With over 200,000 people walking through the doors every week, totaling a staggering 12 million visitors annually, the Paradise Forum creates a captive audience in need of services, entertainment and direction. Media Stream Solutions, the Forum’s advertising solutions provider, realized that the facility’s older mundane signage was not as effective as could have been hoped for, and a better way to reach visitors in the crucial areas of the thoroughfare was required.

Panphonics and Nexus Digital Signs were brought in to provide a new and innovative digital signage system, linking the best in audio and visual technology. The idea was to introduce directive audio speakers by Panphonics together with a giant video wall made up of smaller screens by NEC to create a point where the signage would have highest visibility and recognition by the people passing through Paradise Forum on their way to the city center. The screens were placed above one of the Forum’s exits and a compilation of Sound Showers was elevated metres above the central hall where movement of people is greatest.

The sound system at Paradise Forum consists of six Sound Shower speakers, each three metres long. With an audio footprint of 7x7 metres these create the biggest single assembly of Sound Showers in the world to date.

The advantage of having a grouping of Sound Showers is that it creates an audio footprint long and wide enough to reach a larger specified area. A further advantage is that a group of speakers provides constant sound coverage for listeners. Thus, as visitors walk across the Forum’s walkway, they do not loose focus of the message coming out of the speakers. In addition, this is all done without disturbing the retail outlets that surround the target area in front of the screen.

When combined with the grand arrangement of NEC’s large video walls, the Panphonics Super Sound Shower provides advertisers at Paradise Forum a lot of space to work with. The Sound Showers enable sound to be added to an otherwise silent advertising picture providing a whole new scope of dynamic opportunities.

The digital signage system has created more attractive advertising possibilities and allowed for new and engaging city welcome messages for tourists, public address announcements and urgent messages. From live news and lifestyle content to travel and weather feeds, the Sound Showers at Paradise Forum grab shopper’s attention with more than just images and words portrayed on a screen. The result of the high fidelity audio technology and visual design together create a welcoming ambience and an atmosphere worthy of returning to.