We're adding a video experience to part of our exhibit's flooring. What's the 411 on LED/digital flooring systems in terms of installation, durability, and care?

Digital flooring is made of individual LED tiles that can be programmed and mapped to display your content much like any video screen. The difference is that with flooring, video content is shown seamlessly over multiple LED tiles that are built to withstand foot traffic and that feature a protective, scratch-resistant clear coat. These tiles can create an immersive experience, allowing attendees to safely walk on them while video content is being displayed. However, compared to traditional flooring, LED systems have a few quirks and requirements, particularly when it comes to installation, packing, and maintenance.

Installation
While LED floor tiles can be installed by anyone trained in their proper care and handling, most trade shows will mandate the use of an audiovisual tech for installation. That said, simply hooking the tiles together usually requires clamps as opposed to tools, which makes things a bit easier. During setup, the tiles are also daisy-chained together with power and data cables from below. As such, systems need to be raised off the floor to allow laborers to connect them.

The daisy-chain cabling must also follow a premapped pattern, with the end of the chain linked to a single-sender console, which is then connected via HDMI/DVI to a laptop. Your flooring provider will typically supply you with a proprietary software that relays your content to the sender console. The latter then delivers the imagery to the tiles, which in turn display your intended content.

Once installed, the flooring needs to be tested to determine if there are any issues that might have popped up during transport. But even if there are, you should be able to swap out full tiles or parts from the front or back sides of the tiles with ease. That said, you'll need to send a few spare tiles plus standard cables and parts with every shipment just in case.

Although not ideal, you usually can make adjustments on site. Suppliers typically provide clients with a digital map based on their specific resolution and configuration. Created content can then be loaded into the software and connected to the digital floor to test and verify that it was saved correctly. While you should always test the system prior to installation, changes are usually possible if content was saved according to the provided map.

As one might expect, digital flooring takes considerably longer to install compared to traditional flooring that's merely rolled out. A carpeted 400-square-foot floor, for example, typically requires two carpenters two hours or so to lay. Whereas, the same size digital LED flooring may take eight hours to install and test.

Maintenance and Packing
In terms of maintenance, LED tiles don't lose their resolution over time, so you won't end up with haziness as a result of the tiles themselves. And unless an actual component in the LED fails, they will provide light seemingly forever, as LEDs do not burn out like fluorescent lamps, which will degrade and dim over time. In fact, LEDs operate more than 20 times longer than an incandescent bulb and five times longer than fluorescent lamps.

That said, LED tiles have pixels that need to be replaced from time to time, as will some circuitry parts. But replacement parts are fairly easy to come by, and service time is minimal. LED panels or power boxes, for example, can quickly be swapped out for replacement with few or no tools.

The key to dealing with part-repair issues, however, is to prevent them. Digital floors are shipped in custom-jigged foam cases for safety during transit. Still, they need to be handled with care, so select a trusted, bonded shipper, and make sure you have insurance on your investment. You can also rent many digital flooring systems, in which case maintenance and transport issues fall on the rental company.

Digital flooring requires a bit more care and setup time compared to traditional products. However, that supplementary investment comes with added benefits, as a high-tech flooring display attracts attention, relays messaging, and helps to create an immersive experience.