Tens of thousands of revelers welcomed 2009 Wednesday night under the bright lights of New York City’s Times Square. In the heart of that celebration, at Broadway and 43rd, was Steve Bumstead and his Renton business PIXELFire Productions.
Broadway and 43rd is the location of a new high-definition JVC billboard, powered by 1.2 million LEDs. PIXELFire Productions launched its new PIX-iT technology on that billboard this New Year’s Eve.
PIX-iT allowed those 10s of thousands of Times Square revelers to interact and appear on that new billboard.
From 6 p.m. until midnight, those partiers could text message answers to trivia questions displayed on the screen and also appear on the screen themselves. The Times Square partiers can take photos of themselves on their cell phones and then e-mail those photos to a Web site. From an office across the street, Bumstead screened the photos and then uploaded them to the billboard. Bumstead is president and founder of PIXELFire.
The photos appeared on the billboard “almost instantaneously,” Bumstead says.
That’s because each photo appeared alone for a few seconds on the 19-by-34 foot screen. The photos appeared in the middle of the screen, fronting a graphic of New York City’s skyline. “2009” spun around a ticker, or animated strip, circling a giant globe to the right of the screen. Another ticker running across the bottom of the screen flashed “2009” and other pictures.
Early on New Year’s Day, partiers who appeared on the JVC billboard will receive an e-mail with a link to a Web site where they can download a souvenir copy of their photo as it appeared on the billboard, plus the words “New Year’s Eve Times Square,” “Happy New Year” and “I Was There!” The copy is available as a 16-by-9-inch photo or as a size designed for a computer desktop.
Bumstead hopes revelers will share their photo with friends and relatives and help spread JVC’s name.
The whole billboard display is, after all, an advertising campaign for the audio and video company JVC, PIXELFire‘s client.
“The goal is for people to share (their pictures), then that becomes a viral branding campaign for JVC,” Bumstead says.
Beyond tonight’s campaign, PIXELFire‘s larger goal, or “quest,” as Bumstead says, is to “develop memorable brand experiences.”
PIXELFire has been developing those memorable brand experiences since Bumstead founded the Renton company about eight years ago. During that time his company has created video content for video screens across the country.
His staff of subcontractors and four full-time workers have jazzed up video screens in car dealerships and shopping centers in California, a reggae bar in Chicago, restaurants in New Orleans, and car dealerships, casinos and shopping centers in Washington.
PIXELFire is not new to New York or Times Square either. In Times Square, Bumstead’s company has developed video billboards for clients including Duane Read Pharmacy and Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! museum. PIXELFire also created a video display for New Year’s Eve 2007 in Times Square.
But tonight’s billboard display is the first to use PIX-iT technology.
Although Bumstead says the technology behind PIX-iT isn’t new, he thinks his New Year’s Eve 2009 creation will be the first time that technology has appeared on a large public screen.
“The technology we’re using — it’s not rocket science or anything — there’s a lot of code writing involved to make it work, but to my knowledge no one has done this yet,” he says.
He and his team developed PIX-iT in November. Bumstead hatched the idea at a Times Square party for the unveiling of the new JVC billboard.
Although Bumstead is excited about PIX-iT’s debut, he isn’t sure how many pictures he will receive.
“Because it’s the first time, I’m not sure whether were going to get 58 pictures or 20,000,” he said. “…The hope is we’ll get tens of thousands of people submitting their photos.”
After New Year’s, Bumstead hopes to bring PIX-iT to events across the country. As he says, “sporting events, concerts, or whatever.” Possible venues include Qwest and Safeco fields and ShoWare Center, to open in Kent on Jan. 2.
Bumstead and PIXELFire may return to Times Square to celebrate New Year’s Eve 2010. But right now Bumstead is just trying to get through New Year’s Eve 2009.
“Check back with me next year,” he says.
Check out a video demo of the New Year’s Eve video billboard created by Renton company PIXELFire Productions at:
