A committee is set to meet today in Chicago to consider a push to relax restrictions that prevent digital billboards to be lit up within 100 feet of that city’s famous waterways and riverwalks.
Restrictions currently block billboards from being placed and operated within 100 feet of waterways like the Chicago Riverwalk. In the same way many, many cities trying to fund operations by allowing DOOH/OOH advertising into mass transit systems, advertising concessions for displays along the busy riverwalk would generate revenues through advertising share agreements or guarantees.
“We’re not here to take away from what makes the Riverwalk amazing, but to add to the Riverwalk,” one city councillor suggests, in supporting the plan.
How billboards would add to an area pretty much escapes me, and I am in the industry that makes and markets the tech! And no, spinning bourbon bottles and cars that seem to almost drive right out of a screen through visual illusions wouldn’t make a walk or boat ride better. Leave it alone.
The river is the one that winds through the central area, near the lake, and known for things like being turned green on St. Patrick’s Day.
Whatever comes out of the committee would still have to clear full city council approval.
Photo at top purely my cheeky concept.