DANVILLE, Ill. (WAND) – A Danville company has replaced the world’s largest video screen, which will soon be fully on display along Fremont Street in Las Vegas.
In 2018, Watchfire Signs began its work on an LED canopy that greets casino-goers in the historic five-block area of Vegas with free six-minute light shows each hour during evenings. The screen, which measures at 1,300 feet long and 90 feet wide, was completed in eight sections and shipped to Fremont officials, with the final piece sent on Friday.
The company sent a schedule of shipping dates in Sept. 2018 and told The News-Gazette it made every deadline while keeping under budget. It started assembling the first section about 11 months ago at its production plant in Danville. Over the summer, each Watchfire employee signed a piece of a section of the sign in Sharpie.
“Early on, that was one of the first fun things we did,” said Watchfire Senior Director of Marketing Carol Wade.
The newspaper said Watchfire’s canopy is much brighter and sharper than Fremont’s older screen, as it has 16.3 million pixels and 49 million LEDs – about four times the LEDs of the past model. It’s seven times brighter and will be vivid during the day as a result.
Officials first built the original canopy display in the mid-1990s as a way to draw tourists. It went through a $17 million LED upgrade in 2004 before Watchfire recently earned the $30 million job.
Workers in Las Vegas were installing the seventh of eight sections in late October. The final piece will soon follow.
About 22 million people take in the light shows each year, Fremont leaders said.
