HELENA, MT—LED video builder SNA Displays partnered with award-winning international audiovisual and technology services company Electrosonic and other technology partners to deliver a fully immersive journey through Montana’s history. The Montana Heritage Center, located a block away from the state’s capitol building in Helena, 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 a comprehensive and integrated AV ecosystem in which sound, light, and motion respond to visitors. SNA Displays supplied custom video walls and slim vertical displays that define key gallery moments. In total, SNA Displays manufactured and supplied 42 display faces across 9 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. Through this collaboration, museum visitors can see and hear stories, often told in the original sovereign nations’ languages, while standing amid depictions of wildlife, mining tunnels, open roads, and more.
Guests enter the museum through Washington Way at the entrance of the Homeland Gallery. In honor of American industrialist Dennis Washington, this cinematic passage surrounds curious story-seekers with coordinated projection, LED fissures, and an LED ceiling display that curves like a flowing river. The environment shifts color and sound to express various themes and begin the immersive museum experience.
The narrative continues through the state’s eras of mining, resilience, and innovation. Interactive touchscreens tell personal stories, while the dramatic Mineshaft Experience surrounds visitors with LED videowalls, spatial audio, and synchronized lighting to recreate life underground. This immersive technology simulates a shaking floor and plunges guests into the reality of Montana’s mining history.
Another key exhibit contains a sweeping concave dvLED wall called Moving Through Time which uses visuals that move in sync with the gallery’s immersive soundscape. Likewise, 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.,” describes 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!”
See SNA Displays’ Montana Heritage Center portfolio page for more details.
About SNA Displays
SNA Displays is a leading LED video display manufacturer across several market sectors including sports and live-event venues, out-of-home (OOH), commercial real estate, retail environments, museums and commissioned digital art, workplaces, new construction, and many others. With a focus on quality, technological and construction expertise, and dependable service, we have worked alongside technology partners to design and build some of the largest and most recognizable LED video installations in the world. Discover how SNA Displays builds big at snadisplays.com.
About Electrosonic
Electrosonic is an award-winning international audiovisual and technology services company. Our team designs, builds and supports innovative, experiential and immersive environments that create lasting experiences by fusing architecture, storytelling and technology. For more than 60 years, Electrosonic has been recognized for its commitment to innovation and unsurpassed technology design, system integration and support services. Through technical consulting and strong industry partnerships, we deliver complex, world-class experiences in museums, themed entertainment, transportation, sports, enterprise, media, energy and utilities and higher education. More at electrosonic.com.
