Tell me 'bout Billboards...

Factual Questions
1

As I was driving home this evening, I spotted two fresh billboards on the interstate, huge ones mounted on single great towering columns.

I realized that I have never seen anybody working on one. My curiosity was aroused.
[ul][li]When do they change the advertisements? (i.e. time of day/day of week)[/li][li]Do they remove the old ones or do they simply paper over them?[/li][li]Do they still do it like wallpapering, putting up individual parts of the big picture?[/li][li]There is a little catwalk in front of the billboard, but it looks incredibly inadequate for the job – do they use a cherry picker for the real work? Safety rails that snap in place? Simple safety harnesses?[/li][li]I have a distant memory of reading that folks used to hand paint the advertisements – billboards were all “starving artist” original painting of sorts. Was this ever true? When?[/li][li]I have noticed that the lights are off during my morning commute even though it is dark. Do they only leave them on in evening hours or were the timers out of whack (due to DST changing soon?)[/li][li]How much does it cost to have an advertisement printed up?[/li][li]How much is the average rent? Do they rent by the week, month, day, ???[/li]How much does one of those massive steel structures cost?[/ul]

2

[QUOTE=minor7flat5]
As I was driving home this evening, I spotted two fresh billboards on the interstate, huge ones mounted on single great towering columns. Huge, towering signs came when laws were passed limiting how close to the road a sign could be. Try Googling “Lady Bird Johnson billboards.” If a sign is “informational” (6 miles to McDonalds,) then it can be closer.

I realized that I have never seen anybody working on one. My curiosity was aroused.
[ul][li]When do they change the advertisements? (i.e. time of day/day of week) A sign crew may do several signs a day, so there’s no set schedule. [/li][li]Do they remove the old ones or do they simply paper over them? [/li][li]Do they still do it like wallpapering, putting up individual parts of the big picture? Yes. Graphic printing is much better than it once was.You can order a 75-foot photo. [/li][li]There is a little catwalk in front of the billboard, but it looks incredibly inadequate for the job – do they use a cherry picker for the real work? Safety rails that snap in place? Simple safety harnesses? Once up there, they work from the catwalk. Ladder-or-cherry-picker choice depends of the height of the sign and the size of the company. Technically, harnesses are required, but (fudge factor.) [/li][li]I have a distant memory of reading that folks used to hand paint the advertisements – billboards were all “starving artist” original painting of sorts. Was this ever true? When? It once was true. Most of the old “Mail Pouch Tobacco” signs were painted freehand. If you want a permanent sign on the side of a building, you can still hire a hand-painter. Now, though, it’s much cheaper to have a sign printed up in sections, and have a paste-up done. [/li][li]I have noticed that the lights are off during my morning commute even though it is dark. Do they only leave them on in evening hours or were the timers out of whack (due to DST changing soon?)[/li][li]How much does it cost to have an advertisement printed up?[/li][li]How much is the average rent? Do they rent by the week, month, day, ???[/li][li]How much does one of those massive steel structures cost?[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]

Ted Turner’s rule, which has become universal, is “Never let a sign go blank.” Sometimes, this will result in a cheap rate for a given sign that will soon be blank. At one time, Turner had more signs than anybody. Now, it’s Clear Channel.

3

Certainly, the 75’ photo is not one piece. :eek:

There are certainly places where they can’t get any additional advertising and the sign doesn’t get changed: there is a billboard on the side of a building not too far from my apartment for a video game that came out three years ago and there are a couple that I’ve driven past that are for elections for god knows when they were (aldermannic ones, two years ago?).

Then again, these are on the side of a building by some fairly major streets, but I imagine that there’s much more competition for a highway sign as orders of magnitude more people will see it on a daily basis.

I also presume that they’d have to be rented by the month with a minumum committment as it seems like a waste of time to put it up for a few days/weeks. The following links (found via a quick search) may help. Some are rented by month and some by 1000 viewers. Hmm.

These aren’t massive highway billboards, but you

Here’s some better information.

One more.

4

Then there are the three-way billboards I’ve seen around here. The board is made of triangular columns, each with strips of three different ads. They show one for a minute or so, rotate 120 degrees, and wait again. I don’t know if the rates are 1/3 the regular boards (to match the time an advertiser gets), or higher because the movement attracts attention. I’ve noticed one or two that have a nice ripple effect as each column rotates in turn.

As to the OP’s questions, I’ve seen people on the liitle catwalk stripping off old ads. I don’t remember any safety lines, but these were low ones, only ten or fifteen feet off the ground.

5

[ul]
[li]Do they remove the old ones or do they simply paper over them?[/li]
For the pasted-on paper signs, they just glue on the new one until there’s so many layers of paper that they start to peel. This can be really obvious after a good rain.
[li]Do they still do it like wallpapering, putting up individual parts of the big picture?[/li]
The pasted-on ones are done like wallpaper - just wider strips. A newer technique is to print the ad on a giant vinyl “skin” that’s stretched over the sign’s frame. The back side is clamped in place, rather than using any glue.
[li]There is a little catwalk in front of the billboard, but it looks incredibly inadequate for the job – do they use a cherry picker for the real work? Safety rails that snap in place? Simple safety harnesses?[/li]
That’s all they seem to need. OSHA does get a little fussy about wanting harnesses, though.
[li]How much does one of those massive steel structures cost?[/li]
Not sure on the structure cost, but the land cost for a “monopole” is just the square yard or so occupied by the column, plus any negotiated “air rights” which basically covers the sign’ shadow on the ground.

[/ul]

6

I spent the first 25 years of my working life in the billboard industry. Maybe I can answer some of your questions.

The ads are changed during normal working hours usually. We started at 6:00 AM to miss the commuting traffic in the morning.

Bills used to be posted(pasted over old ads). The signs came in sheets and were soaked in paste all night before posting, the next day. The pages are folded and numbered so that the come out of the tub in order, ready to slap into place. Usually the rule of thumb was 8 layers then strip the sections. That was the old way. Nowdays they are printed on a large plotter on vinyl sheeting and are rolled on a tube.

The walkboards on the front are normally36" wide. Actually plenty room to work the front. There are also walkways behind the face to work the back. .O.S.H.A. regulations require a continuous safety line on all walkboards. The workers clip onto the line and can navigate the complete front of the sign letting the clip slide down the cable.

Indeed most signs were at one time hand painted on panels in the shop. Especially pictoral ads and yes most sign painters were or are frustrated artists.The whole sign face is hung on a wall and painted, taken down, then reassembled on the job site. This was done with a crane hanging 6 panels at a time. Actually that is where my screen name came from. I was a crane operator. Now they are printed and sent to the sign shop on rolls and rolled out along the face of the sign with a crane.

Lighting. Most are on timing mechanisms. They come on at dusk and run for a pre set amount of time. Most set to turn off at midnight.

Price. Of course the prices are set by demand and traffic volume. A 14’X48’ face (standard for most freeway type locations) can run from $1,000 to $5,000 per month. Most will average about $3,000 in the houston area. I know of one right near downtown houston that rumors had it leasing at $10,000 a month or more 10 years ago. Most terms are for 12 month intervals.

The structures themselves cost about a hundred thousand dollars turnkey. That is structure, faces, and lighting .

The faces themselves as I stated earlier, are almost all done on vinyl now. Printed by computer. The cost factor is cut by probably 2/3 from the cost of a hand painted sign.
Standard sign face sizes are10X24, 10x40, 14x48, and 20x60. The one I spoke of downtown Houston is IIRC 75 feet tall by 250 feet long.
Sorry to go so long. I think I answered most of your questions. Feel free to E-mail me if you need more information.

7

I KNEW I would forget something! As GOTTPASSWORDS stated, the signs are secured to the reverse side of the face. When it is time to replace the ad we just unstrap the old face and drop it to the ground. Then stretch the new vinly where the old one was. The old face can then be taken to a new location,re-rolled and reinstalled for exposure to a whole new group of daily commuters. One sign might be displayed at as many as 12 locations in a 12 month period.

8

You didn’t ask this specific question, but I’ve had this answer ready for so long and I think this is as good an opportunity as I am going to have to share with you that Bill had a billboard. Bill also had a board bill. The board bill bored Bill, so Bill sold the billboard to pay the board bill. Now Bill has no billboard or no board bill.

9

Zoe, Zoe, Zoe. Are you familiar with Dobby, the elf from the Harry Potter movies?
If so, you need to take a lesson from him and go iron your hands after that.

:smiley:

10

Is it not true that Bill bored holes in the boards to build a new billboard? And he ran out of boards and had to buy some new boards so now he can bore all the holes in the new boards to build a billboard to pay the new board bill?

11

What’s up with billboards I see occasionally where it looks like the panels are all out of order, so the image is scrambled?

12

TUREK: That is a sign waiting for a new face to be stretched over it. No need to have them in order at all. Sometimes the contract runs out and the ad is no longer valid, the face can be turned over and will be completely white. Or have an “ad space for lease” sign.

13

This never ceases to amaze me. Got a question about jet thrust reversers? Post it and some airline pilots will respond. How about treatment of transgendered prisoners? Post it and our resident prison doctor will respond. Got a question about billboards? Post it and some fellow with 25 years experience in the field will show up.

Thanks for the excellent answers.

Did you know that in Brazil they use the English word “outdoor” to refer to billboards?

Example:
“Da janela do quarto dele, dava para ver um outdoor na auto-estrada.”
“From his bedroom window he could see a billboard on the highway.”

It’s really hard for me to use this word in Portuguese since one must mispronounce it correctly, fighting the strong urge to say it with its true pronunciation. The first time I ran across this word in print I asked my wife what it meant and her first response was: “It’s English! You should know what it means” :slight_smile: