SNA Displays announced a partnership with Electrosonic to deliver an immersive experience at the Montana Heritage Center. The center is now using LED video technology and other audiovisual elements to create an interactive environment to tell the stories of the state’s earliest inhabitants through to modern times.

“The Montana Heritage Center set out to offer visitors a fully immersive journey through the state’s history by combining storytelling, architecture, and technology,” said Alex Westerh, vice president of global marketing for Electrosonic. “We knew SNA Displays was the right LED partner to help Electrosonic achieve that vision due to their long history of delivering world-class products and installations. The result is a dynamic connection to Montana’s past and present that creates a sense of wonder for countless visitors from around the world.”

Electrosonic designed an integrated AV ecosystem where sound, light and motion respond to visitors. SNA Displays supplied custom video walls and slim vertical displays that aim to define key gallery moments. SNA Displays manufactured and supplied 42 display faces across nine exhibits using a mix of 1.2, 1.9 and 2.5 mm interior LED video technology. Digital design studio RLMG created dynamic interactive and media content tailored to each display.

SNA Displays said that this collaboration serves to allow museum visitors to see and hear stories while experiencing depictions of wildlife, mining tunnels and open roads.

The experience begins at the entrance of the Homeland Gallery. In honor of American industrialist Dennis Washington, the passage surrounds visitors with coordinated projection, LED fissures and an LED ceiling display that curves like a flowing river. The narrative continues through the state’s eras of mining, resilience and innovation. Interactive touchscreens tell personal stories, with a “Mineshaft Experience” that surrounds visitors with LED videowalls, spatial audio and synchronized lighting to recreate life underground.

The company also highlighted the “Moving Through Time” exhibit which features visuals that move in sync with the gallery’s immersive soundscape. The “Sovereign Nations Tipi” includes motion sensors and touchpoints to trigger origin tales and scenes of village life that play in sync with sound and lighting.

“In the museum itself, first you are greeted by the veins in the stone, with embedded LED that allows them to appear to flow like water, lava, etc.,” said Paul England, senior director of design solutions at SNA Displays. “The overhead LED river leads you into the first gallery, with a large curved overhead display welcoming guests and introducing what the museum is all about. There are many wonderful exhibits and a wealth of artifacts and treasures, but for me the
highlight is the mineshaft ride. Guests can step into a mine elevator car, pull the rope to start their shift and ride down into the deep well, stopping along the way to view restored archival footage as well as digital recreations of the people, activities and conditions in the mine. All while being told a story of the brave and tough men that worked the seam. Everyone who watches the experience is simply captivated!”