Getting to know ISAAC What Smart Monkeys’ state-of-the-art system portal can do for parks and attractions by Judith Rubin
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hen the Tom Bradley International Terminal opened at LAX in 2013 and was honored by the Themed Entertainment Association in 2016 with a TEA Thea Award (as an Outstanding Environmental Media Experience) it brought wider exposure and recognition in the attractions industry to the system known as ISAAC. Short for “Integrated Scheduling and Automation Control,” ISAAC is the state-of-the-art, supervisory system from Smart Monkeys Inc. that manages and updates the wide variety of media and content streams running on the Tom Bradley Terminal’s many displays.
attractions tech specialists become conversant with ISAAC and the industry continues to evolve toward IT type infrastructure models and enterprise systems.
Operators, technical integrators and system designers saw what it could do, and ISAAC was recently adopted as the facility-wide content management platform for two new theme parks in the Middle East, as well as a high-end parade system for a major operator in North America. One of those Middle East parks is Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi, open since 2018 and named to receive a TEA Thea Award in 2020. For WBW, ISAAC provides the hosting and supervision platform for all show control for attractions, shows, retail, restaurants and parkwide entertainment. More such applications are anticipated in the near future as
“In a nutshell, ISAAC is a scalable platform that relies on IT technology, namely virtualization,” says Villet. “We create systems, mainly clusters, that are sized specifically for hosting certain applications. For example, a theme park today may have dozens of show control systems to run its various shows, attractions and parades. ISAAC would host all those systems using a series of networked PCs loaded with specific software - a familiar model in our industry. The difference is that the PCs aren’t physical machines, they exist as virtual machines – as software configurations within a secure, on-premises data center.”
Redefining the field Theme parks and attractions are already making use of enterprise systems, data centers and networks for ticketing, data collection, security, food service, hospitality, wristbands. Stephan Villet, Managing Partner at Smart Monkeys, presents ISAAC as a logical step for running attractions as well.
ISAAC (Integrated Scheduling and Automation Control) received wide exposure in the attractions industry when the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX was honored with a TEA Thea Award. ISAAC supervises the multiple dynamic display systems in the terminal. Photo courtesy LAX.
Special ISE & DEAL issue 2020
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