One screen does the job in most shops. But there are situations where a single display is simply too small for the space, or where the content genuinely needs more room – a full menu, a foyer that has to make an impression, a showroom where the screen is part of the fit-out.
That is where multi-screen setups come in. There are three quite different approaches, and they get confused with each other constantly.
Three kinds of multi-screen
Separate screens. Several displays, each showing its own content. A café might have a menu board behind the counter and a promotional screen in the window. They are managed together but they are not related on screen.
A synchronised array. Multiple screens sitting side by side, each showing a portion of one coordinated layout, changing at the same moment. The classic example is a three-screen menu board: breakfast, lunch and drinks, all switching over together at eleven o'clock. The screens have visible bezels between them, and the design accounts for that.
A true video wall. Purpose-built panels with very thin bezels, tiled together so one image spans the whole surface. From a few metres away it reads as a single very large display. This is what you see in foyers, showrooms and stadium concourses.
The right choice depends less on budget than on what the content needs to do.
Menu board arrays
The most common multi-screen setup in Australian small business, by a long way. Two, three or four screens above a counter, showing a full menu across the run.
What makes them work is synchronisation. If each screen runs its own loop independently, they drift out of step within minutes and the wall looks broken. Properly synced, the whole menu changes as one – which is what lets you run breakfast, lunch and dinner menus off the same hardware, switching automatically on a schedule.
Practical points that matter more than they sound:
- Design across the full run, not screen by screen. Keep prices in a consistent column.
- Leave the busiest screen for the items you most want to sell, at eye height.
- Portrait orientation fits more menu lines; landscape suits photography.
- Do not fill every pixel. Whitespace is what makes a menu readable from the door.
Video walls in foyers and showrooms
A video wall is about impact. In a reception area, a club foyer, a car dealership or a showroom, it does what no single screen can – it fills the field of view and it makes the space feel considered.
Content should suit that. Slow, high-quality footage, large simple messages, brand imagery, live results or event information. A video wall running a cluttered slide of 12-point text is a waste of the investment.
They are the most expensive option, because the panels themselves are commercial units built for 24/7 operation with thin bezels and colour matching between units, and because the mounting has to be precise. Panels sit on a purpose-built frame with fine adjustment on each unit so the surface is perfectly flat and the joins line up.
What the installation involves
More planning than a single screen, and worth getting right.
- Structural check. A four-screen array is heavy. Plasterboard alone will not hold it – you need studs, timber backing or a floor-standing frame.
- Power and data. Each screen needs power and a signal feed, run through the wall or a cable channel. Do this before the plasterer finishes if it is a new fit-out.
- Heat. Screens in a recessed cavity need airflow, particularly in a kitchen or a sunlit foyer.
- Access. Someone will need to reach the back of the screens eventually. Pull-out mounts are worth the extra cost.
- Alignment. A video wall is unforgiving – a millimetre out on one panel is visible across the whole surface.
Most small installations are completed in a day, outside trading hours. Larger walls take longer, and are best coordinated with a shopfit rather than retrofitted.
Keeping it running
The hardware is the easy part. What determines whether a multi-screen setup still looks good in two years is the software behind it – whether the screens stay in sync, whether content can be scheduled across the whole array at once, and whether changing a price means editing one item or rebuilding four layouts.
Bold Digital Signage handles multi-screen sync and scheduling as standard, so a menu change updates every screen in the run at the same time.
Bold Media Group designs, supplies and installs multi-screen signage and video walls for venues, showrooms and food businesses across Australia.
If you have a wall or a counter run you are not sure how to fill, send us a photo and the measurements and we will tell you what would work.