Symon Dacon proves key to unlocking effective wayfinding as Principal Hayley put the “Grand Connaught Rooms” back on the map.

Principal Hayley Hotel and Conference Venues and Symon Dacon have deployed their first joint digital signage implementation at the iconic and newly named Grand Connaught Rooms. With the latest in digital signage technology, combining custom content with real-time event information, patrons effectively navigate their way around the venue.

Client challenge
In June 2009 Principal Hayley acquired the New Connaught Rooms, embarking on a £7m renovation project and renaming the iconic 200 year old property the ‘Grand Connaught Rooms’.

Principal Hayley’s vision was to re-launch the Grand Connaught Rooms as one of Central London’s largest, most sophisticated and high-tech conference and banqueting venues. Originally three buildings combined into one, it is an unconventional space arranged across multiple floors, covering a total floor space of 15,000 metres. With 30 meeting and training rooms, including the grand banqueting suite, a 700 seat theatre and three lifts leading to various areas of the building, an efficient navigation system was required.

An innovative digital signage solution would be needed to meet Principal Hayley’s unique wayfinding requirements and simultaneously compliment the high-end design envisioned for the Grand Connaught Rooms. Symon Dacon was selected as the digital signage vendor to fulfil the requirement.

Mark Jelley – IT Director, Principal Hayley and council and committee member, BAHA commented; “at Principal Hayley it became apparent that there was a growing requirement for digital signage across our hotels and conference venues. After evaluating a number of digital signage vendors, Symon Dacon’s solutions really stood out to us as ‘best of breed’. We needed a digital signage platform that was sophisticated enough to cope with the diversity of Principal Hayley’s property portfolio, that could collect and display event data automatically and was scalable enough to be deployed across the entire estate. Additionally, the fact that we could have a single partner to support our projects from software, hardware, content, installation and support makes the process far simpler.”

Value proposition
With a capacity to accommodate 5,000 delegates in one day it was important to create a highly visible wayfinding solution that would help delegates and visitors get to their designated meeting rooms as efficiently as possible. To accomplish this Symon Dacon and Principal Hayley embarked upon a rigorous consultation process, during which it was decided that custom designed content would be key to meeting the Grand Connaught Rooms besboke wayfinding requirements. Symon Dacon’s primary objective was to ensure guests could navigate their way quickly to the right meeting room, on the correct floor via the right lift, whilst creating a visual statement piece in the lobby area that created maximum impact.

A stunning focal point was created by rear-projecting a 60” custom designed wayfinding display onto a glass wall. In addition high-level displays were positioned on either side of the grand staircase displaying custom content to reinforce the rear-projection.

Symon Enterprise Software (SES) was installed with a real-time connection to Micros Fidelio Opera version 5. This enabled SES to retrieve real-time meeting room data, which is automatically displayed on an animated wayfinder, allowing guests to navigate to the correct location within the venue.

“With a project like this it’s key to initially understand the challenges,” says Matt Cole – Head of Visual Communications, Symon Dacon. “At the Grand Connaught Rooms the main objective was to ensure guests are able to efficiently navigate around such a large venue. Critically, we had to ensure guests accessed the correct floor via the correct lift from the lobby area. We designed custom content to communicate this key information in a simple and effective manner.”

Through innovative design the displayed content satisfies multiple objectives simultaneously, not only facilitating easy navigation around the property but also providing a means of cross-selling and up-selling the facilities and amenities. Content is pre-scheduled within Symon’s content and scheduling software ‘Design Studio’ to automatically update depending on the time of day and level of traffic within the venue.

Matt continued; “using dynamic scheduling enabled us to get the right content to the right people at the right time. Now that the solution is in place it will continue to add value, as the use of the system evolves based on additional requirements and wider use of its capabilities.”

Business results
During peak periods all displays are dedicated purely to wayfinding, ensuring delegates move smoothly from the main lobby area to their designated meeting rooms. Towards late afternoon, evenings and weekends as delegates are finishing meetings or arriving for social functions and events, in addition to wayfinding, the content displayed updates to include promotional content, advertising internal amenities such as the Lounge Bar or Principal Hayley’s Hotel Russell located nearby. The 60”rear-projection has also been a visual focal point for social events, incorporating dynamic content.

In the future the Symon Enterprise Software at the Grand Connaught Rooms will also be used to power the digital signage implementations at other locations including the newly acquired Glasgow Central Hotel. This will enable Principal Hayley to both maximise their investment and the full potential of SES, benefiting from one central platform with displays across multiple properties. Having the ability to manage content centrally and locally provides the perfect mix of brand consistency, group information and local property messages.

Mark concluded; “we are delighted with the service that Symon Dacon has given us and excited about the possibilities for the future which could include expansion to additional Principal Hayley properties. Symon’s SES software gives us the flexibility to add interactive displays, meeting room door displays and even providing content to our guest’s mobile devices across the portfolio.”

 

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