Permanent LED and LCD video walls designed and installed across Chicagoland. Engineered for the buildings here, where what is above the ceiling usually decides where a wall can hang.
Most video wall projects here start with a location that turns out to be impossible. Someone picks the wall, we look up, and there is ductwork, a sprinkler main, and a lighting run exactly where the mount needs structure. In an older brick building with an open ceiling there is often nothing overhead to hang from at all. That gets discovered on install day surprisingly often, and by then the drawings are done, the panels are ordered, and the options are all bad. Outdoors the problem is different: a display specified for a mild climate faces a hundred-degree temperature swing across the year.
So we work the building first. Where the wall can physically go, what has to be coordinated with your contractor, and what structure has to exist before anything gets ordered. The second question is whether a wall is even the right answer, because in a lot of Chicago rooms a cluster of displays or one screen driven as four panes gives the same effect for far less. Where a wall is right, the specification follows viewing distance and the environment, and anything outdoors is LED built for a real winter.
From Loop lobbies and Fulton Market conversions to neighborhood sports bars and suburban corporate floors, we design, install, calibrate, and support permanent video walls across the metro.
Repeated crossings of freezing drive condensation inside a cabinet, so outdoor construction gets sealed with real moisture management rather than a generic outdoor label.
Outdoor hardware here has to handle humid nineties and well below freezing, so it gets specified for the actual range instead of a mild-climate assumption.
Mounting gets engineered for wind off the lake plus snow and ice load at that specific height and exposure.
An ambient light sensor keeps an outdoor wall readable at midday and dimmed at night, which also matters through the months it sits largely unused.
How we work
Put the best technology where you are driving the most experience, then find out what the building will actually allow. In this city the second half takes real work.
Our first conversation is a consult rather than a quote: what the space is, where people actually look, what the wall has to accomplish, and the budget you are working with. Then the building gets examined, because that is what constrains the answer here. A ceiling-hung wall needs a ceiling plate and a structural pole, and on the open ceilings common in converted Chicago buildings that means unistrut and structural backing coordinated with your contractor. What sits above the ceiling decides the rest, since ductwork, lighting runs, and sprinkler locations all limit where a mount can land. Sightlines have to survive all of it, so we settle this in design rather than discovering it during install.
The specification follows how far away people will be, and getting that wrong is the most common way this budget gets wasted. A wall people stand close to needs a much tighter pixel pitch than one read across a room, and paying for resolution nobody can perceive is money that should have gone into the mount or the processing. We also read the light in the space, since a room with tall windows behaves nothing like an interior lobby. From there one team handles the install, the calibration, the staff training, and the documentation, and we coordinate with your electrician and low-voltage trades so the wall arrives as part of the building rather than bolted onto it.
Where Chicago walls earn
A wall earns its cost in some rooms and wastes it in others. Here is where we see it work in this market, and where something lighter does the same job.
In a bar or restaurant the wall has to serve the seats that carry the night, so we count them before sizing anything. A single large canvas suits a room that watches one thing together, while a wall split into a grid suits a room following several games at once. Sports viewing gets a tighter pixel pitch, because fans sit closer than operators assume and a coarse wall looks soft on fast motion. Where the seat count does not justify a full wall, a cluster or ribbon of commercial displays gives the same feel for far less, and a video processor in the control system makes the group behave as a single canvas.
Corporate and retail rooms buy a wall for information rather than atmosphere. A Loop or West Loop lobby wall competes with daylight through tall glass, so brightness and placement get solved ahead of resolution and the content has to stay readable rather than merely look impressive. Boardroom and briefing walls get sized off the furthest seat and the platforms in use, and a canvas carrying eight or more inputs at once is a different design problem from a single-source display. Retail walls carry your own brand and product content, sized so it reads from the aisle rather than only up close.
Outdoors the answer is LED, and in this climate it has to be specified for the full range rather than the summer you are standing in. Chicago asks a wall to handle humid nineties and well below freezing, and the thing that actually kills hardware is condensation cycling as the temperature crosses freezing repeatedly. So construction gets sealed with real moisture management, mounting gets engineered for wind off the lake as well as snow and ice load, and every outdoor wall gets an ambient light sensor so it lifts at midday and dims at night instead of running flat out. Outdoor work carries a higher budget and a shorter service life, and we say so up front.
Plain answers
Three terms drive most of the cost on a video wall project. Here is what each one means for your room.
An LCD video wall is a grid of thin-bezel panels with processing built in. It costs less, resolves well, and is indoor only, but tiles come in a couple of sizes so the wall is the size the tiles make it, and it caps out at a practical grid. LED uses cabinets in many sizes driven by an external processor, so you get shape freedom and a surface that reads as one screen rather than a set of panels, and it is brighter. It also works indoors or out. Direct view simply means LED with a very fine pixel pitch, tight enough that you can stand close and still see a clean image, which is why interior LED walls are essentially direct view.
On an LCD wall, calibration is a matching exercise: color, brightness, and contrast matched panel to panel so the seams disappear and the surface reads as one. Done poorly, every panel shows a slightly different white and an expensive wall looks cheap no matter its resolution. What calibration cannot do is rescue a bad panel, so selection matters more than tuning. Service is the longer question. Manufacturers quote diode life in the tens of thousands of hours, and an outdoor wall in this climate never reaches a lab figure, so we plan for parts rather than hoping. We supply a spare-parts kit from day one and keep revolving inventory, so a failed module gets swapped immediately instead of leaving a dark patch.
Because in Chicago buildings the ceiling decides whether that location is even possible. A ceiling-hung wall needs a ceiling plate and a structural pole to carry it, and in the converted brick and timber buildings common across this city there is frequently nothing overhead to attach to, which means unistrut and structural backing have to be added by your contractor before the wall exists. Then there is everything already up there. Ductwork, lighting runs, and fire sprinkler locations all constrain where a mount can land, and moving a sprinkler head is a different project with its own approvals. Sightlines have to survive whatever is left. We would rather find all of that during design, when the fix is a drawing revision, than on install day when the panels are already on a truck and every remaining option is a compromise. It is also why we ask what is above the ceiling before we quote a size.
Worth asking first, because it is where the most money gets saved. A wall earns its cost where the experience is actually being created, and the test is to count the seats that will see it. If a bar seats fourteen and the room seats a hundred and eighty, a full wall behind the bar spends the budget on the smallest audience in the building. Several alternatives get most of the way there for much less. A cluster or ribbon of commercial displays reads as one feature when placed and driven properly. A single large display can be driven as four panes so it behaves like a small wall. A video processor in the control system turns any group of screens into one canvas. In older Chicago rooms this comes up often, because the structural work needed for a true wall can cost as much as the panels. We will tell you plainly when a wall is right and when it is not.
More than the cold alone would suggest. The damage comes from cycling rather than low temperature, since crossing freezing repeatedly drives condensation inside a cabinet and moisture is what takes out electronics. So outdoor construction gets sealed with genuine moisture management rather than carrying a generic outdoor label, and connections and cable entries get protected properly. Mounting gets engineered for wind coming off the lake in addition to snow and ice load at that height. The other half is brightness: every outdoor wall gets an ambient light sensor so it lifts at midday and dims at night, which keeps the panels from running at full output constantly and aging early. Chicago also asks a wall to handle humid nineties in July and well below freezing in January, which is a wider range than most equipment is specified for, so we select for the actual swing. Done properly the wall stays up year round instead of being taken down each fall.
We do not rent. We design and install permanent video walls, and the service plan is part of the design rather than something added later. On failures, the honest picture is that every manufacturer quotes diode life in the tens of thousands of hours and no outdoor wall in this climate reaches the lab figure, so we plan for parts instead of hoping. We supply a spare-parts kit from day one and run revolving inventory, which means a failed module gets swapped immediately, the dead one goes back under warranty, and the repaired unit returns to the pool. The wall keeps working rather than sitting with a dark patch while a replacement ships. Warranty terms scale with the tier of wall you buy and we will be straight about that trade-off rather than quoting the best case. Most support issues resolve quickly and remotely, with around 47 percent closing inside an hour without a site visit.
What We Do Here
Every system is designed, installed, and supported by our own team in Chicago — never subcontracted.
01 / CHICAGOAV consulting from an audio visual consultant who joins at the architectural phase, designs the technology into the plan and steers the project around your business outcome.
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Commercial video walls across LED, LCD and Direct View. Designed, integrated, installed and supported by a national design-build AV integrator.
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03 / CHICAGOCommercial sound system design and installation: multi-zone audio engineered around how your space is used, wired and tuned on site, and supported as a partner.
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Design-build digital signage for hospitality and enterprise: commercial displays, content management, and installation that keeps your screens selling and current.
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Design-build AV control systems: one iPad, wall panel, or browser runs every display, audio zone, lighting scene, and source in the room. Programmed and supported in-house.
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AV programming that starts with the right design: a vetted, interconnectable stack unified into one control system, so the whole room runs from one simple interface.
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Conference room AV designed around the people using the room: video conferencing, Zoom and Teams Rooms, displays, and audio, installed and supported as a partner.
Conference Room AV in Chicagoarrow_forwardClient successes drive Crunchy Tech to become better. Below is how our customers feel about us.
The Design Build process was the best thing that could have happened. They showed our ownership three different options on each feature wall — from the bar to the rest of the venue. That’s when it really sold them. They felt involved. They knew what they were putting in, they were making the decisions, and they could see it was going to look right.
Working with Crunchy Tech was a fantastic experience from start to finish. They handled the sale and installation of all our sound and TV equipment at The County Bar in Aviston, IL, and absolutely nailed it. We were on a very tight deadline, and they not only met it—they delivered top-notch quality and service the entire way. Highly professional, responsive, and easy to work with. We couldn't be happier with the results.
Crunchy has done an amazing job on our A/V install. The sound is perfectly balanced throughout our many zones and the entire system is super simple to use.
The Design Build process was the best thing that could have happened. They showed our ownership three different options on each feature wall — from the bar to the rest of the venue. That’s when it really sold them. They felt involved. They knew what they were putting in, they were making the decisions, and they could see it was going to look right.
Working with Crunchy Tech was a fantastic experience from start to finish. They handled the sale and installation of all our sound and TV equipment at The County Bar in Aviston, IL, and absolutely nailed it. We were on a very tight deadline, and they not only met it—they delivered top-notch quality and service the entire way. Highly professional, responsive, and easy to work with. We couldn't be happier with the results.
Crunchy has done an amazing job on our A/V install. The sound is perfectly balanced throughout our many zones and the entire system is super simple to use.
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Read article arrow_forwardTell us about the space: the neighborhood, the age of the building, whether the ceiling is open or finished, whether the wall is indoors or out, and how far away people will be sitting. The consult starts with whether a wall is the right answer, then we look at the structure and come back with one engineered recommendation instead of a panel count.
