Liseberg Catches Visitors’ Attention with Digital Signage

Liseberg amusement park was running its own internal digital signage network for over a decade, but was struggling to expand and upgrade it. The existing system was also facing reliability issues, which led to unacceptable levels of down time, meaning screens were often not working at crucial times such as busy queuing times in the summer months.

The new solution, running centrally over a Scala IT backend and a Vertiseit user interface, has replaced a variety of different solutions with a centralised system.

In coordination with Scala partner Vertiseit, Liseberg rolled out a centrally controlled park-wide digital signage network supported by Scala templates and a Vertiseit Mission Retail user interface, running 130 players over 200 screens of various sizes and ages. All Scala templates and content are created by Vertiseit, in cooperation with Liseberg.

The signage fits into three different categories: At the main entrance of the park, large LED screens were erected for marketing purposes, to drive traffic into the park and inform visitors of pricing models, opening times and daily event schedules. With the help of Scala, these screens run Liseberg’s own internal media digital out-of-home (DOOH) channel.

In ten of the quick service restaurants (QSRs) around the park, communication is driven through digital menu boards. “These are completely different concepts and it’s easy to handle those concepts with Scala,” explained Johan Lind, CEO of Vertiseit.Finally, the key aim of Liseberg was to increase customer satisfaction connected to queuing for attractions. The Scala-led digital signage network helps the park communicate queue lengths for each attraction. “When you know the queuing time it’s easier to stand in a queue. If you don’t know how long the queue is, you experience it like a pain.” Not only do the screens help communicate queuing times for a particular attraction, but for all rides in the vicinity. “This helps Liseberg use the park capacity to its maximum by helping to redistribute crowds.”As part of this initiative, Vertiseit developed a custom-made mobile application offering gaming challenges to customers queuing for the parks’ new rollercoaster Helix. To keep visitors satisfied during a wait that can last for up to two hours, the Helix app for iPhone and Android provided a lot of small interactive games inspired by the attraction including balance and gravity games. The app connects to 15 public displays in the queue, driven by Scala. The Scala-driven screens displayed the publication of the scoreboard and results every 15 minutes.“The Helix app is a way to make the queuing time pass faster whilst having fun,” added Kolb. “The app consists of 10 different mini games that represent the various elements of the attraction. The game is synchronised with the screens hanging throughout the queuing section and it’s possible to win an express pass so you can skip the line.“

The centralised Scala digital signage system yielded immediate results for Liseberg following its gradual rollout across the park. It’s particularly successful in driving visitor engagement through mobile integration.

The new Helix ride app and screens in particular drove a record number of visitors last year, over a million visitors downloaded the app 250,000 times and played on it for over 30,000 hours. “The results of this app and digital signage combination were fantastic, the design agency won an advertising award here in Sweden and the app was at the top of the app store list for the whole of last summer,” said Lind.

Scala was deemed the perfect fit for Liseberg’s overall digital signage requirements due to its integration capabilities. “Scala handles integration very easily, enabling us to present information in a manner which follows the customer’s graphic design guidelines,” explained Lind. “Scala is perfect when it comes to handling fonts for example.” Finally, the reliability of the Scala system is crucial to the success of this project. “It’s business critical that the screens with all the price information all work,” added Lind. “In the past, they had issues with their in-house queuing solution, down time was unacceptable. We now guarantee them 99.7% up time.”

Ultimately, the use of digital signage makes it easier for Liseberg to update and change the information shown to its visitors: “By pressing a few buttons we can update opening hours and queuing times across 100 locations at once,” concluded Kolb. “This ease of use means the demand for these services are increasing.”