QL Digital Signage for stadiums and arenas at Bell Centre

The Bell Centre in Montreal, Canada, is home to the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens hockey club. The venue’s owners were looking to boost fan engagement at sports and live events using stadium LED signs and experiential signage installed throughout the venue. The arena’s technical leadership wanted a digital signage CMS platform that could live on their network and operate independently from their IT department. The organization’s on premise server had to support different types of users with various access rights. Users also needed the flexibility to publish content to entire groups of stadium display boards or only to specific screens. The solution had to support a wide range of media player hardware types running on different operating systems. Based on these requirements, Bell Centre selected Navori Labs’ QL software platform for their project.

QL Digital Signage for stadiums and arenas at Bell Centre
“The ability to customize QL to support advanced audio and data needs has also provided exceptional value – not to mention its reliability in scheduling and disseminating advertising content to accelerate our return on investment. They also provide exceptional support, both from their North American office in Montreal, as well as their Switzerland headquarters. They have been more than a supplier; they have been an excellent partner.”

Pierre-Eric Belzile

Vice President of information technologies and communications, Montreal Canadiens hockey club, Evenko, l’équipe Spectra.

Bell Center Stadium LED Screen

Bell Centre Software Requirements

Bell Centre needed stadium signage advertising software that could meet every technical challenge:

  • PROFESSIONAL, HIGH-DEFINITION CONTENT RENDERING. Dynamic high-resolution video, animation, graphics, live streaming, and rich data are rendered on hundreds of stadium display boards of varying sizes, orientations, and resolutions.
  • RICH TEMPLATE DESIGNER. QL gives content creators and designers the freedom and flexibility to create and deploy content-driven experiences.
  • MULTI-TENANT. QL supports multiple users with varying layers of access. Custom user profiles define what staff members can access, what they can do, and which notifications they can receive.
  • MULTI-PLATFORM. QL natively supports multiple media player hardware devices running on different operating systems. It is a single, centralized system staff members use to manage concourse displays, concession digital menu boards, indoor and outdoor LCD displays, and video walls.
  • INTENSIVE USE OF QL’S API. QL uses an open architecture that allows for API-driven customizations and automation.

Further requirements

  • ADVERTISING/ DOOH. QL has all the features Bell Centre needs to manage its ad sales and bookings. Moreover, it offers ad campaign management, and staff can meet the advertiser’s required impression targets. Certainly, the software delivers accurate proof of play statistics and can be interfaced with programmatic advertising booking systems.
  • CONTENT AUTOMATION. QL supports instant content triggering during regular programming and special events. It’s an intuitive solution that Bell Centre staff can rely on to manage their concession stands digital menu boards. Staff members publish rich menu content with images, and promotional videos, and can also affect price changes on-demand.
  • ON-PREMISE BACKEND HOSTING. QL is a centralized, self-hosted digital signage software platform that can be managed by Bell Centre administrative staff. The software requires minimal IT supervision.
  • EMERGENCY ALERTS. QL lets Bell Centre staff create “message on hold” programs that play audio clips related to venue events, guest security, and visitor information. QL also controls the venue’s standalone box office sound system and audio messaging throughout the arena’s concourse.

About Bell Centre

Located in downtown Montreal, and with a capacity of 21,273 seats, Bell Centre is the largest North American hockey arena. It’s also one of the most technologically advanced and versatile event venues in the world. Bell Centre is home to the legendary Montreal Canadiens Hockey Club and is the headquarters for the Montreal-based promoter, Evenko.

www.centrebell.ca

Navori QL Software Modules Used

  • AAP-40 QL Core: Server On-Premise – Desktop and Mobile Content Manager, Multi-user with customizable roles – SSO, Template and Ticker Designer, Data Feed Manager XML, RSS, Twitter, Facebook, Office 365 and Google Calendar and basic Monitoring
  • ASR-02 Load balancing module – per additional IIS server
  • ASR-03 Microsoft Azure BLOB module
  • ASR-04 Server API module
  • AAP-41 Expert module including advanced monitoring and aggregated playback reporting
  • BAP-10 Advertising module– Digital-Out-of-Home / DooH – Campaign Management Module
  • BAP-14 Multi media-player content synchronization module
  • BAP-21 Insane performance rendering (IPR)module – 8K player engine (Windows 64 bits required)
  • HW-03 Stix 3500series – 4k external media player. Android. Three years warranty
  • QL Digital Signage Software