Olympic signs of the times - three months earlier than planned
Huge Olympic-themed building wraps will pop up in Vancouver three months earlier than expected under a new deal involving the City of Vancouver, Vanoc and 3M Canada.
The city originally planned to restrict the installation of 2010 building murals and graphic designs until Jan. 1, 2010, but has relaxed the rules to allow them any time after Oct. 1 this year.
3M was concerned the Jan. 1 restriction didn’t give it enough time to properly transform buildings into Games-themed displays, especially if bad weather delayed the application of clings, wraps and films to building exteriors.
“We’re thrilled,” 3M spokeswoman Sarah Tattersall said. “This allows us to work with our sponsors more effectively by getting their graphics up in a timely fashion. To get them up in October certainly gives us more fair [weather] conditions than we’d get in January.”
Some companies — such as CTV, Molson and RBC — have already been allowed to display Olympic images on their Vancouver buildings as long as they don’t take up more than 10 per cent of the building face.
Larger Olympic building wraps have taken place at the B.C. Lottery Corp. building in Richmond and on Air Canada facilities at Vancouver International Airport.
City of Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic operations director Paul Henderson said the city wanted to delay the building wraps until Jan. 1 to create a kind of “Christmas morning” effect when a lot of Olympic graphics would have been installed in a short period before the Games.
But he said city officials understood the timing and weather concerns and don’t feel the three-month extension will lessen the excitement that will be created in the buildup to the Games.
“By the fall of 2009, there will be all sorts of indications the Games are coming so I don’t have any real concern around that,” Henderson said.
He expects between 10 and 20 major building wraps will be installed in Vancouver by the time the Games begin, including buildings to be used as hospitality venues for Olympic sponsors and stakeholders.
“There will be all kinds of opportunities for celebratory images beyond building wraps — including video imaging and projections on walls,” Henderson said.
Wraps will be seen in the downtown core, near Olympic venues, at the airport and on vehicular approaches in Vancouver and Whistler.
[email protected]
http://www.vancouversun.com/Olympic+sign...+earlier+than+planned/1610392/story.html
. Perhaps there was some concern over them just looking a bit faded if they were put up too far in advance.
Linear Mode
