Hormel Foods Introduces a New SPAM Museum with Interactive AV Support from Electrosonic

	SPAM Museum

The iconic Hormel Foods SPAM canned pork product -- known and loved around the world -- has a new museum in Austin, Minnesota. Electrosonic worked closely with fabricator Universal Services Associates, Inc. (USA) to provide interactive AV support for the museum's fun and informative exhibits.

The new 14,000-sq.-ft. SPAM Museum replaces the original museum at the Hormel Foods headquarters, which closed two years ago. The new space explores the SPAM brand's global popularity, its place in regional recipes, its history with the US military and the many innovative things people have made from the famous blue cans.

"We were able to work with USA early on and deliver examples of each type of display to their Pennsylvania headquarters so they could mock up the exhibits off-site," said Electrosonic project manager Rick Nelson. "This process greatly sped up the install at the new museum."

Visitors begin their tour in a circular area where columns of SPAM product cans form a colonnade around Apple iPad Air 2s playing SPAM brand quizzes, a 95" Samsung display showing TV clips, and multiple interactive counters comprised of Planar touchscreens offering emailable recipes.

Corporate videos are displayed on 42" and 46" NEC LCD monitors in portrait and landscape modes. Highly-directional Panphonics sound shower speakers contain the sound in the busy area. Hormel family history is recounted when visitors trigger a BrightSign media player.

International exhibits feature numerous Planar touchscreens with country-specific video content: The UK offers a Monty Python-inspired Spamalot game while South Korea heats up a wok of sizzling SPAM products activated by a Museum Technology presence detector. Visitors can also use two Planar touchscreens to decorate a Philippine Jeepney bus and email their designs home. An interactive global map, on a 70" ELO display, showcases all the countries that embrace SPAM products in their diets.

A World War II section examines the key role that SPAM products played in keeping GIs well fed. A wartime newsreel plays on a Planar 24" display housed in a wooden crate. A proximity sensor or a push-button trigger the SPAMville story inside a tent where a Panasonic laser projector, housed within an army tent, projects portrait-video of a soldier walking to the entry of the open tent to tell his story of SPAM products while overseas.

Reprised from the original SPAM Museum, the SPAM Ballet video documents the production process from the assembly line to shipping. It features three Samsung 16x9 LED screens side by side fed by BrightSign media players. The soundtrack is synched to the "CanCan" dance score and played over JBL Control 25 speakers.

Finally, the giant Hormel Foods Brands Wall and its interactive kiosks enable visitors to touch any product and watch a commercial for it.

Electrosonic supplied the museum's AMX 3200 control system and AMX MSD 701L touch panel to start up and shut down exhibits and manage audio levels as crowds increase during weekends. Experi-Tech custom software drives the interactive computer content and iPad apps, which are updated over Wi-Fi in the museum. Remote content updates are handled via TeamViewer on an administration laptop.

BrightSign media players and CPUs in the control room use Adderlink and Kramer KVM extenders to transmit signals to the displays on the floor. Electrosonic also supplied the Dell Optiplex 9020 small form-factor computers throughout the museum.

Cincinnati, Ohio-based JRA (Jack Rouse Associates) was the designer of the museum.

Chris Johnson and Bryan Abelowitz were Electrosonic's account managers for the project; Mike Dwyre and Andy Borum, from Electrosonic's Orlando and Minnesota offices, respectively, handled the installation.