The Town of Cary, NC activates its Downtown Park with the Soofa Sign
The Town of Cary is the first to bring the Soofa Sign to North Carolina. Located in the first phase of its recently opened Downtown Park, the Soofa Sign is used to promote events at the park, inform residents and visitors about what’s happening nearby, and provide updates on the continued development of the remaining seven acres of the premier park.
The completion of the first phase of the park has helped to reinvigorate downtown Cary from a 9 a.m. -5 p.m. weekday experience for residents, visitors and businesses to a lively, event-driven nights and weekends destination.
Paired with the beautiful new fountain and gathering space in the park, dynamic programming and unique events draw people in and keep them there - the Town of Cary enjoys significantly more foot traffic downtown since the opening of the park in summer 2017.
"The opening of this first phase of our signature park represented a major milestone in our downtown Cary vision. We are seeing more people than ever visit and stay downtown, which is spurring the development of new mixed-use buildings and more residential units," explains Lori Bush, Mayor Pro Tem, Town of Cary.
“Adding the Soofa Sign to Downtown Cary, and being first to deploy this exciting technology furthers not only our Smart City vision, but helps us get the right information to our citizens, where they are. This is a key element of us achieving our goals of activating downtown like never before.”
Goal: Find a more efficient way to message citizens outside.
In an effort to be more efficient and have more control and creative flexibility in marketing events to people using or passing through the park, the Town of Cary saw outdoor digital signage as an exciting opportunity. Before the Soofa sign, Town staff used paper signs on sandwich boards to call out upcoming events, an outreach effort that fell victim to adverse weather and required staff to go onsite regularly every time there was an update.
Results: Beautifully designed content reaches people where they are.
The Soofa Sign was selected because of its beautiful and clean design, which perfectly complements the aesthetics of the park and overall downtown enhancements; its intuitive content management system, Soofa Talk, which lets multiple content creators post at any time; and its simple, light footprint installation.
With the ability to post information to the sign in real-time and schedule content for the upcoming days and weeks, the Town of Cary never misses the chance to share upcoming Downtown Park events with the public. They do this in an efficient way, from the comfort of their office computer or on their phone, taking advantage of the Soofa Sign’s wireless uploading.
Up Next: Test new types of content and iterate quickly.
In the coming months, the Town of Cary intends to test a number of different sign features and will explore partnering with a number of community cultural arts organizations to expand the types of information displayed on the sign.
As Jennifer Warner, Marketing Supervisor at the Town of Cary explains, "as we move forward experimenting with the best types of content to post, we envision being able to promote events that are not only happening at the park, but also things going on all across town. We can also share civic information like notices for upcoming meetings and announce ways for citizens to have their voices heard."
“The Soofa Sign lets us interact with people while they are in the physical space. We are able to share important information with a captive audience.”
