The Project

We have continued our successful partnership with Arsenal football club by outfitting its flagship shop with the latest in sound and AV technology. The success of the project at the Armoury store showcases our technical expertise and creativity and shows that we can deliver exceptional installations that bring interactivity and excitement to the retail environment.

The project brief was to install sound and AV systems throughout the newly refurbished Armoury store. This is located below the podium at the West side of Emirates Stadium close to Holloway road. It features the full range of PUMA Kit and Arsenal fashion and merchandise for men, women and children.

Our Solution

We won the tender for this prestigious project because we had previously worked on retail installations with both project clients (442 Design and Arsenal Football Club). Both organisations were therefore confident in our technical and creative abilities.

The equipment we put in place included large video wall display screens, digital signage systems, state-of-the-art sound and a stunning video ‘waterfall’ made from various orientations of screens. This waterfall is the centrepiece of the installation and greets visitors as they walk into the store, arching up and over them. It can display a single image across all of the monitors or cascade video content down the screens.

We also fitted interactive audio systems within the store’s changing rooms. Each changing room is themed individually as either an underground tube station, a football pitch or a press conference. When a customer enters one of these changing rooms, an appropriate audio loop is triggered and plays until the customer exits.

Key Project Steps

• Technical Specification and system design
• Equipment procurement
• Installation
• Programming and commissioning

Key challenges

Our team took on the complex task of commissioning the installation’s Data-path systems (which controlled the video content), OneLan Digital Signage System and Q-Sys audio processing, control and management system. All control systems had to be intuitive to use and flexible enough to allow maximum creativity within the store.

The refurbishment of the new store (which was stripped back to an empty shell) also presented its own challenges, as we had to work alongside other trades to a tight deadline to get everything ready for the high-profile grand opening.

The main challenge posed by the commissioning of the video ‘waterfall’ was ensuring that the orientation and spacing of the monitors was correct, so that any image would look correct across all displays.