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My marquee is not worth restoring--it is quite ugly. I am going to purchase a two sided sign shaped like and outlined in neon just like my building, with an LED insert. Anyone purchased one of these? They are quite pricey, but the ease of changing the letters is worth it to me; especially in the winter.

The problem with LED and other 'electronic' signs is that they need to be turned on ALL the time in order for people to see your message. With a standard marquee and flat (or dimensional) letters your message on the reader board can be read whether it's turned on or not.

Burney:
Go for it! We are also looking at the possibility of replacing our street sign with an electronic LED type sign eventually. We agree that they are pricey but may have other advantages that we don't currently enjoy with our 3 line street sign. Remember that we are only 1970's and never had a nice marquee on the theater. The street sign is part of the mall signage and was new 10 years ago. It doesn't have enough space for lots of words. It also has electrical problems in the rain and the wind blows our letters around. Sometimes we lose them completely in the wind. We lost all the letters in March and never found 6 of them at all. Several were smashed when they hit the pavement. We are trying to order more letters but Wagner 8 inch letters are getting harder to find. I have some concerns about glare, weatherability, and electrical outages on the new LED signs but I think that this is probably where our future lies. If you do it we would love to hear about your experiences. What works well and what doesn't.

GO FOR IT!

Beck: I've always got the impression your weather is like Winnipeg's. Our weather is either too hot (45 degrees with the humidex today or 110 for most of you in the US) or too cold. We had "FLOOD OF THE CENTURY" in 97. The winter had an average of 6 feet of snow!

MTC, a vaudeville theatre, has this and it's pretty cool. It's fine for all of our conditions.

Burney,

MAKE SURE YOU GET PHOTOS! BEFORE AND AFTER!

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"Would you like fries with that?"

The sign guy is driving here Wednesday from Sacramento, 3.5 hours away. He is going to take his measurements, photos and go over the final details. Six to eight weeks from now I will have to coolest sign in the county (except for the Indian casino in Redding that doesn't have to worry about codes and rules, etc.) Anyway, I have been assured that glare, weather, snow, rain, etc are not problems and LED is cheaper to operate than incandescent lighting. Here's a link regarding power costs that was provided by the LED sign company I am using. http://www.adaptivedisplays.com/Media/LED-energyconsumpt.xls

[This message has been edited by BurneyFalls (edited July 29, 2002).]

Burney:
I can't seem to make the link work. It says that it can't find the adaptivedisplays.com server. Can you check?

Whoops! I tried it for the third time and it worked! Excel worksheet.

My new LED sign is ordered and partially paid for. Depending on the County Planning Department's efficiency, it should be installed in 6-8 weeks. I am really excited about it and will put pictures on my web page when it is functional.

Is is up yet Burney?

Can we get photos??

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"Would you like fries with that?"

No it is not up yet, but I will know more in a couple weeks. The sign company and the planning department are slugs.

Sorry Burney but you just made me laugh!

I had a vision of poor Ron Weasley coughing up slugs after his broken wand backfired.

(Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)

Is the planning dept giving you a tough time over codes on this type of sign? We have the unfriendliest planning dept here and I am afraid that they would give us a tough time with an LED sign. I am quite sure that we would not be allowed to have it flash but I don't need that feature anyway. These are the same people who required trees to be planted along the road so that our shopping center sign (and our marquee) cannot be seen very well by traffic from the north unless the leaves are off the trees. They do not promote business here. That is one reason why there are so many empty leaseholds in town.

The Planning Dept. is going to let me have the LED, I'm pretty sure; even though the code states "no blinking, flashing, rotating or animated signs, or signs that change color or intensity...". The County Fair site put one up about six months ago and it flashes and rotates. I talked to the fair staff and they said they had no trouble with the LED in Planning. She told me their thought is the message is all one thought/sentence/idea and therefore didn't violate the code!!! Sounds good to me.

The hang up with my sign is that the County changed the darn code section relating to size about four weeks ago. Now my sign is 33% too BIG. I went ballistic and told them this has been in their hands since the first part of August and this is the first I have heard of a code change. I also have a letter from the Planning Director dated last July telling me he would approve the LED sign and giving me exact specifications, including the larger size.

The problem may be with the sign company though. He may have been dragging his feet. He says he has been going back and forth with planning since August, but when I checked with planning they didn't have any record of my application until last week. The sign guy better not be lying to me. He has had over $5000 of my money since August!

Sorry this is soooo long.

P.S. I haven't seen the new H.P. yet so I don't know about those slugs. I will see it at my theatre on or before Nov. 15th!

The Planning Department approved my sign today without any changes!!!!!!!!!!!! I'll let you know when it is installed and when I have pictures on my website.

Great news! I am looking forward to seeing the pictures.