An LED hoarding is the digital successor of the painted advertising hoarding: a band of LED panels around the boundary of a cricket ground, football stadium or arena, cycling sponsor campaigns during play. Search for how to run one and you will meet the phrase LED hoarding control system — which sounds like a piece of hardware, but in a modern setup is mostly software.
What the control system must do
- Content management. Import sponsor videos and stills; auto-fit them to the hoarding's pixel band, however wide the boundary runs.
- Scheduling & rotation. Sell the hoarding in slots, build the rotation as playlists, loop it for the whole session — a full day of cricket included.
- Live control. Wicket, goal, boundary, time-out: quick actions cut in instantly and return to the rotation. Brightness follows the daylight; a ticker runs without stopping playback.
- Proof of play. Every exposure logged with date and time, reported per sponsor — the audit trail advertisers and agencies ask for.
Software control vs. hardware controller
The panels' manufacturer ships a hardware controller — the LED processor — and often a basic utility to configure it. That utility calibrates the wall; it was never designed for running a season of sponsor campaigns. A software control system sits on top: it treats the processor as a display and owns the operational layer. The two are complementary, and the comparison is covered in depth in software vs. hardware controllers.
| Concern | Hardware controller | Software control system |
|---|---|---|
| Configures the panels | Yes — install time | No — uses the processor as-is |
| Sponsor rotation & scenes | Basic or none | Full playlist / scene engine |
| Live match cut-ins | No | One-click quick actions |
| Proof-of-play reports | No | Per-exposure logs |
| Tied to panel brand | Yes | No — any processor with HDMI/SDI input |
One PC, any hoarding
LedPlayMeter's player opens full-screen on the PC wired to the LED processor; the processor captures the output and distributes it along the hoarding. Pixel dimensions are configurable to any boundary length, single-row or wrapped. The venue's internet connection is not required during play, and the whole configuration moves between grounds as a one-file backup.
Same surface, other names: pitchside advertising boards in UK football, perimeter LED display in the international industry.