Those attendees — roughly 4,000 of them — came from all over the world, according to Retail Events director Mark Pigou.

"Quite certainly, I can say that we’ve had visitors from every continent on the globe," he said, noting that the number of non-U.K. attendees had risen 40 percent from last year’s inaugural event.

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All shapes and sizes

Several booths emphasized screen size, from the modestly impressive to the downright overwhelming.

At Sharp’s display, the company demonstrated what it claims is the world’s largest LCD at 65 inches, oriented in portrait mode and featuring a horizontal backlight and full HD resolution. The company shared its space with software provider Dynamax Technologies, whose Point of View content scheduling/management solution is installed in more than 3,000 locations.

Representatives from PSCo chatted in front of a wall built of 16 bevel-less 42-inch plasma screens.

Samsung was showing an equally impressive, bright and crisp 63-inch plasma, with a native resolution of 1366 by 768. Meanwhile, the PSCo booth could be called either a feast or overindulgence for the senses — a massive video wall comprising 16 42-inch bezel-free plasmas (arranged 4 by 4), and a 103-inch plasma screen from Panasonic.

PSCo also was one of several exhibitors showing waterproof LCDs — like nearby Sanyo, the company had a display inside a clear case, with water pouring over the screen inside.

When it comes to sheer size, they don’t come much bigger than Cisco — and the networking giant, which entered the digital signage business quietly in late 2006, had a domineering presence at the front of the exhibition hall. European marketing director Jason Cowell said it was an interesting experience for Cisco, since many other companies on the floor who were partners not long ago are now competitors.

"This is a horrifically fragmented market," he said. "So it gives us the opportunity to come in and try to set the standard."

Two of the more unusual, perhaps disorienting, experiences could be had by standing between the displays of LG Electronics and Pyramid Screens. The former, a worldwide titan in display technology, showed a number of very bright, vivid screens in several sizes; innocuously placed in the middle was an utter head-turner, a screen that gives a remarkable 3-D effect without glasses. According to business development manager Jamie Hanna, the display — which he said elicited an enormous amount of interest — was a prototype model, still in development and not yet commercially available.

Right across from LG was Pyramid Screens, whose name just about says it all: The company’s product is a pyramid-shaped screen, hollow on the inside, allowing images to be projected on all four of its surfaces.

Projection technology was well represented and not just on oddly shaped screens — Pigou noted a drastic increase in the number of companies that were pushing projection as an alternative to traditional LCD and plasma screens. "A healthy debate is brewing there," he said.

An interesting thing about projection is it takes the onus off of the screen itself to do the heavy lifting — which allows for creative shapes and sizes. Ncast showed a projection screen that is not only physically flexible but also durable — the actual lens material is sandwiched between two layers of a waterproof, scratch-resistant surface.

Projection technology allows interesting screen shapes – like the die-cut screen on the right, which takes its shape from the 3M logo.

Projection screens also could be found at the "Digital Signage Showcase" booth, hosted by Minicom Advanced Systems and featuring Pixel Inspiration, 3M, NEC and DVI Partnership. 3M also showed a fascinating use of projection at its booth — a screen die-cut into the shape of the company’s logo.

One of the more creative uses of projection was seen at the Motomedia Ltd. booth. The company places projectors and screens inside vacant storefronts in shopping malls — then sells advertising space on them, sharing the revenue with mall owners who otherwise would have lost money on the space.

"Shop fronts were the focus of our business, but we just didn’t appreciate what we could do with them," said company director Kenny MacLean, whose background is in traditional retail.

And then there were the floor projectors. Several companies showed their interactive floor displays, which alter their message when trod upon.

Talk Events, a 3-year-old company whose background is in event management, entered the digital signage market six months ago; its interactive floor can either be a standalone information dispenser or can be integrated with wall-mounted screens. Meanwhile, at OM Interactive’s booth, the focus was on the OMi-Vista projection system, which was used to project an interactive soccer (make that "football") game on the floor.

While many of the technologies on the floor were competing with one another, there were a few unique entries — and chief among them was the groundbreaking debut of the iCapture viewer measurement system from Israel-based TruMedia Technologies.

Much has been made about the digital signage industry’s need for hard audience measurement numbers, and iCapture is an innovative attempt at answering that need. The company, whose pedigree is in tracking and recognition for surveillance systems, began exploring real-time audience measurement for signage about a year ago.

Software from TruMedia Technologies identifies the number of faces viewing the screen – then provides real-time counts, viewing habits and demographic information.

iCapture, which had its formal debut at the show, interfaces with a camera mounted atop a digital sign. It automatically detects viewers, locating every pair of eyes looking at the screen at any given moment, then tracks and counts them in real time. It also measures how long each pair of eyes looks at the screen, and can offer basic demographic information, like whether the viewer is male or female.

The result is a true "per impression" measurement of digital screens, and a wealth of hard data that can be used not only for billing purposes but on-the-fly determination of what content works and what doesn’t.

The company is quick to point out that it is aware of privacy concerns; as a result iCapture does not store any images — just the data extrapolated — and does not extract any data that can uniquely identify the viewer.

Esprit Digital also stopped traffic with a recreation of its dynamic signage solution for London’s Underground "tube" stations. At the Tottenham Court Road station, the old paper signs flanking the escalators have been replaced with screens; not only do they rotate ads and promotions, but Esprit president James Brenner said his company holds a patent on a software technology that allows ads to move alongside travelers from one screen to the next. (Recently, this technology was put to good use upon the release of the "Rocky Balboa" film — footage of Rocky running up the stairs "jogged" alongside riders of the up-escalator.)

Brenner said his London-based company has a contract to install the system at all of the remaining tube stations — and from there, it is off to other public locations.