Cost of piazza big screen revealed
The University’s bill for the big screen on the Piazza installed in June came to over £365,000.
The figure, revealed in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the Boar, showed a total cost of £365,071 including VAT (charged at 20 percent), although the University claims it “can, and does, recover much of its VAT, but different elements have different rates of recovery, so it is not a simple matter to provide a figure for this for this project.”
The screen, which was purchased from NEC Display Solutions, will cost a further £4,400 per year to run. NEC managed the installation with the team who were already working on the Rootes development work.
Comments on the ‘Overheard at Warwick’ Facebook page showed a mixed response when the screen was announced.
One student said: “Why does our university have an obsession with putting expensive TVs everywhere that least needs them – first the library cafe, now this…”
Another wrote: “It will become an annoying distraction. It will draw my focus away when I’m in the Terrace Bar for example. It detracts more from the area than it adds. I mean, do you think people will still be able to sit on the steps of the piazza without getting distracted by it? Especially if it keeps the speakers on constantly?”
However one said it would be “great for showing big sports events” and another said “I’m okay with this as long as they attach some games consoles to it.”
The University is in the early stages of experimenting with an ‘interactive element’ of the screen, to be used with events such as gaming tournaments.
Spokesperson for Warwick Peter Dunn said the screen was purchased with “[our] own earned income” and that the price was justifiable, calling it “an investment in the student experience”.
“Considerable consultation was carried out with students and staff during the pilot scheme and we received an overwhelming amount of interest and support from students and student societies,” he said.
“You will have seen with your own eyes the significant support for the screen at a range of events that have generated very large student audiences in the piazza – it was also immensely popular among students and parents during graduation.
“As the first UK university to have such a large central screen, the University was able to secure the high quality screen at a significant reduced price and have also secured additional reductions against future NEC products.”
Do you think the cost of the big screen is worth it? Tell us @BoarNews.
Comments (8)
Actually …. I got in to a bit of a row with one of the guys doing filming on the piazza (I think for this thing) because I thought it was a waste of money and effort.
I actually learnt a few things…
it’s not just for Uni staff and conferenes – student can put material on it too (apparently three clubs have already made arrangements) and they’ve got plans for games events and productions from student soieties
the quality of the screen is actually really high (HD and beyond apparently) but the quality you actually see is down to the source material – stuff broadcast off the telly is not as good as DVDs etc
they claim the screen pays for itself – conferences are paying to use it, but it will take a few years to pay back
they wont keep it on all the time – sometimes it will be wit no sound, sometimes turned off totally
personally i’m much happier with it now – ive seen some good stuff and it adds to the piazza. Maybe whoever is running it should communicate a bit better so we don’t all get misled
As long as students get fair use and its not all conference advertising and Uni propaganda , and it gets turned off sometimes …. I’m OK with it
I don’t like make to commenting on Boar stories once in this forum once they have run and I promise not to comment here further on this one but I feel I must point out that we did in fact reply to the Boar with much more info on student use of the screen but perhaps it was cut by their sub editors 🙂 in answer to their question:
“Any specific plans for the screen next term/academic year? ”
Our full answer was actually:
“University events such as streaming graduations, supporting open days and arrivals, streaming opportunities with our global partners such the Warwick Prize for Writing which will be announced at Monash,
broadcasting more documentaries from Warwick academics (such as the recent BBC2 Who Were The Greeks by Classics’ Michael Scott).
– Broadcasting more national and international
sporting and cultural events (Wimbledon, Glastonbury, Athletics, Last Night of the Proms, Commonwealth games in 2014 and so on)
– Supporting student events and activities throughout the academic year from arrivals weekend, Freshers, society events, WSAF, Varsity Matches, student made films and more. The screen has been offered to support recent events such as WSAF and a research project into social media experiment. We are working with the Students’ Union to develop a full programme of activity using the screen the screen team have regular consultation meetings with the SU. The team responsible for the big screen are working with the SU, Radio Warwick, TEDx and
talking to different academic departments to look at how the screen can be used to support activity and are encouraging ideas and feedback from the community to provide a diverse, engaging content schedule covering films. The early feedback received to date has been positive and generated a number if ideas and content requests
We are in the early stages of experimenting with an interactive element to the screen with gaming tournaments and much more.
We have started initial testing of these features and will develop this
offering, we hope in conjunction with academic departments and societies.
– We are also exploring the idea of having an additional channel for Arts Centre activities. This is being developed with the Arts Centre to include digital arts, opportunities to stream arts & cultural programmes”
Thanks, that’s very reassuring and interesting. 🙂
Regarding the quality; I don’t know if it wasn’t running at full capacity when it was first put up or whatever, but it certainly wasn’t HD. There was a program window up there while they were setting up the sound system and it looked like using a CRT monitor from 1989! Once you get back to the Piazza seating area it looks fine, though.
I think the screen is a big hit for conference clients, at the UK Corporate Games for example (where lots of multinational companies participated and stayed on campus) the participants really enjoyed watching the Wimbledon tennis final, as well as viewing live feed from some of the games.
Given where the spend came from I don’t see any controversy here. It’s an added feature for external clients, and I’m sure if it’s utilised properly by the SU and student societies it will bring benefits for students too.
What a terrific waste of money. The screen actively detracts from Warwick. If I were choosing what universities to apply to today, the screen — or rather, what the screen plainly says about Warwick’s priorities — would have sent it down to the bottom of my list.
Well, if you don’t agree with the ideals and policies of Warwick University Ltd., then I daresay you aren’t the kind of person they want to attend anyway.
It’s not like the money is coming out of departmental budgets – they do this sort of thing off their conference income and other sources that have nothing to do with students. As I’ve said before, I’m pretty sure Warwick would quite happily bin the whole student thing and just operate as a research centre / conference village, and still make millions!
That said, this screen is a bit rubbish – but only because the resolution on it is truly hideous. In an age where you can get a 4″ mobile phone with a 1080p HD display, this screen has less pixels than a 10-year-old SD display! You have to stand about 20m away from it before you can even read what it says. The temporary one was much better.
“It’s not like the money is coming out of departmental budgets – they do this sort of thing off their conference income and other sources that have nothing to do with students.”
Isn’t the point of the conferences to supplement what the university already gets from students? Otherwise why have them at all? It’s not like the university is profit-making, however much they obviously want it to be. This is money that should have gone into teaching and research.