I am in the process of trying to contact whoever owns a tri-vision billboard in my town and wanted some thoughts from people who have these and if they are more trouble than they are worth. The sign may be owned by a car company that went out of business and is located on some land of a furniture store that went out of business.
Before you think why would I want this sign because if both places went out of business it must be a bad location. The car company went out of business because it over extended itself and has two locations in town that were just built. There motto was credit doesn’t matter, oops. The reason I think the car company owns it because it still has their advertising on it and it is still lighted which surprises me. Some of the vinyl strips have slipped and the sign does not look good on some of the ads that are rotated. The car company has been gone for about 3 months now.
It is on the main road in our town so the traffic count is good.
I am in a hurricane vulnerable area and did not know if that would be an issue to consider, and if the maintenance or cost for keeping up the sign would be an issue.
I have owned Tri-Visions and also serviced them for other owners. They are a HUGE pain in the neck. However, in some applications, they are worth it. They are not cheap, and if you can get a functioning one for a penny on the dollar, I would definitely do so. The precurser to LED, they allow three ads on one face, so you can rent each side for less – a big advantage in a down economy. The downside is that they are very labor intensive to install copy on, and there are sometimes problems with certain advertisers sharing the same sign (a mortuary and a McDonalds, for example).
I was not in a wind-zone area, but we did have frequent “scrambling” of the panels in high winds. You definitely need to think about that.
wind is rough on tri-visions. the pvc slats always come off and hang up. sometimes they blow off, never to be seen again. some tri-visions use directly applied pressure sensitive vinyl. no pvc slats to hang up or fall off but installation of new copy on site is tough and time consuming. the little gear boxes go bad regularly causing a customer relation mess. speaking of customers, they all think they should pay 1/3 the cost of a regular billboard. you get to explain why they don’t. be prepared for lots of maintenance on an older unit. some people still use them, but i hate 'em…