Sonnenklar.TV unveil their ‘flagship’ store as the first of a projected 450 digital signage equipped, travel agency roll-out in Germany 

On Friday 10th September, Sonnenklar.TV opened a redesigned travel agency in Münich. Claimed to be the first digital signage equipped travel agent in Germany, Sonnenklar.TV intends to roll out an additional 200 franchised stores in the next three years. After which 250 more stores are planned.

The general contractor behind the installation was Maixsys, Acquire’s newest integrator in Germany. Whilst the on-screen graphical designs were carried out by Borsche, Sonnenklar.TV’s marketing and design agency, due to the usual time restraints the designers at Acquire were drafted in to help by building the templates in Acquire.

One of Acquire’s basic page-based, graphical design functions enables users to mask parts of the screen. This is a very quick and powerful way to build up page templates, and all of the displays in the store use this feature. In the photograph (Fig.1) the entire layout and design of the flagship store is shown using a wide-angle lens. On the left side there are four displays in a two-by-two matrix. Acquire is used here to display a TV feed and create the video wall effect.

There are also two displays on the right side, and six at the back in the centre of the photograph. All of these displays are showing different content but at any pre-determined moment they can all be synchronized to show the same image. This frame-perfect synchronization is another of Acquire’s features. The same synchronisation feature also makes it possible to create an image flow from left to right or from right to left.

Sonnenklar.TV, part of FTI (www.fti.de) is the only travel agency in Germany to have its own exclusive broadcast TV channel so the implementation of digital signage is not too much of a surprise. This first installation in Münich is the flagship store and so is understandably equipped with more screens than are intended for the roll-out. The store sizes vary from about 25 square metres to 120 square metres and will accommodate either two 42-inch screens or a single screen and a Totem housing a 19-inch touch screen.