KC Sign supervisor Craig Spangler installs the new digital marquee in front of the Ocean City Music Pier.
A new marquee standing in front of the historic Music Pier promises to be a dazzling, high-tech way to promote Ocean City and advertise its special events.
The city is replacing the antiquated Music Pier sign that had overlooked the Boardwalk at Eighth Street since the 1990s with a colorful marquee featuring the latest in digital technology.
“It will look like a big TV on the Boardwalk,” said Craig Spangler, a supervisor for KC Signs, the contractor that installed the new marquee on Thursday.
The marquee has full digital capability to display welcome messages, images and promotional content. It also has time and temperature capabilities, city spokesman Doug Bergen said.
“Overall, it will allow for multiple event promotions to cycle on any given day. It will greatly enhance our marketing and promotional capabilities at the Music Pier and improve the overall guest experience on the Boardwalk,” Bergen said.
Spangler explained that the marquee will essentially serve as a wireless message center easily operated by computer.
“Whoever is running it, they will be able to log in and control everything. It can say whatever you want it to say,” Spangler said.
The marquee measures 4 feet-by-8 feet and cost the city $48,308. Spangler noted that it will definitely capture the attention of the throngs of tourists strolling the Boardwalk each year.
For the past few years, Ocean City officials have been discussing the need to replace the old Music Pier sign with a high-tech alternative to showcase the resort in a better way.
The Music Pier is the city’s epicenter for entertainment and cultural events, including concerts by the Ocean City Pops, the acclaimed hometown orchestra. Throughout the year, there are concerts, musicals, beauty pageants, food festivals and other shows in the historic building dating to 1928.
The historic Music Pier serves as the main venue for Ocean City's entertainment.The new marquee will also have the capability to make announcements about festivals, concerts and other special events at other venues in town.
The Music Pier’s old sign, dating to the 1990s, was so hopelessly old-fashioned that it required workers to climb a ladder and then manually change the letters.
“There will be no more climbing a ladder and changing the letters,” Spangler said, laughing, now that the old sign is gone.
Showing the punishing effects of the shore’s salty air, the metal superstructure for the old sign was rusty and pitted.
“The salt air really did a number on it,” said Paulie Pro, a fabrication supervisor for KC Signs.
KC Sign supervisors Craig Spangler, left, and Paulie Pro stand next to the weather-beaten metal superstructure of the old Music Pier sign.
