Challenging budget? Challenging design? Challenging timeline? Those are the key questions greeting visitors to Poblocki.com. “Challenge Us” is the reassuring response that Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Poblocki Sign Co. proudly offers.

“Our skill makes us different than any other signage provider in the industry,” explains Marcus Higgins, Poblocki’s general manager, specialty displays, about the company motto. “We execute a full turnkey project from conception to completion. The projects that we thrive at and that we are better with than anyone are the challenging designs and the tough installs that most people would shy away from. Whether you are looking for signage for a new multiplex or restoring a marquee sign that is 50, 60 or 70 years old, those are the challenges that Poblocki takes on. There’s virtually no limit to what our veteran staff of designers, fabricators and installers can deliver to create an electrifying entertainment atmosphere.”

The beginning was somewhat less electrifying and far from the electronics of today, but still had a connection to electricity. Higgins relays the history as told to him by 85-year old Jerry Poblocki, who is still chairman of the board today. “When the Great Depression hit, Jerry’s father Ben was working for another sign company. When he wasn’t getting paid for his electrical work, Ben started doing his own jobs independently and found a niche in the theatre market.”

What began in 1932 with one-of-a-kind marquee magic for Wisconsin movie palaces such as the Orpheum in Kenosha and Warner Theatre in Milwaukee, as well as at the recently restored Rivoli Theatre in Cedarburg (see our sidebar), has since grown into “one of the world’s foremost architectural sign fabricators.” Some 160 employees with an average tenure of at least ten years now design and engineer, manufacture, install and service all kinds of exterior and interior signage, including digital displays, way finding, display cases and kiosks. The company has three sales offices with a 120,000-square-foot manufacturing facility (11,150 sq. m.) at its Milwaukee headquarters.

As over 100 theatre marquees provided “the bulk of the business” during the 1930s and ’40s, Poblocki’s work these days spans from education and health care (representing up to 60% of the business) to financial institutions, corporate signage and, of course, entertainment. The latter group encompasses not just longstanding relationships with the Kerasotes and Marcus theatre chains, alongside regional signage work at IMAX locations, but also stadiums, arenas, museums and other venues across the United States that require what corporate literature calls “energetic ambiance” and “excitement that keeps crowds coming back for more.”

Poblocki offers “value-added services,” Higgins adds, in a complete package from the theatre marquee to directional signage inside. “From the outside of the facility leading all the way until you’re in your seat, we want to make sure that we are providing consistent branding for theatres.” To him, “properly executed signage really extends and emphasizes the brand position, allowing customers to better differentiate between one theatre and the next.” Design, he feels, is “the most important aspect of quality signage” and all about “communicating what your theatre’s brand is.”

Creating attraction and ambiance is not just about flashy neon colors lighting up the night and pretty poster cases, it also includes effective showtime displays, and extends to directional as well as ADA-required informational signage to auditoria, restrooms, offices and more. Designing marquees for over 77 years, Higgins opines, “We have a good idea what drives traffic but is also cost-conscious. We’ve been able to work with architects and theatres directly to design and execute something very unique…in a consistent design aesthetic.”



Elaborating upon the process, Higgins describes the job of the company’s “wayfinding specialist.” Poblocki uses a custom “Navigator program, in which we do complete layout and flow packages, starting on the highway that goes by the theatre throughout its parking lot, to the lobby, to the appropriate theatre auditorium, with designations for box office, restrooms, snacks…the whole works.”

Equally important for that signage is to fit in with its surroundings, be it as part of a lifestyle center or shopping mall and in line with rules and regulations. Therefore, Higgins and his team of specialists not only speak with theatre operators and architects, but also relate to and “combine the needs” of developers, city and town officials, zoning boards and local historical societies. “Rather than going out and paying for a third-party design that you love but you will never get past the city,” Poblocki Sign Co. offers “our own planning and permitting department upfront,” he advises. “Our turnkey service will develop a sign that a) fits into your budget; b) drives traffic to your theatre; and c) can be installed when that date comes.”

Given that the 1936 Rivoli Theatre was among the early Poblocki theatre marquees, it should come as no surprise that its 2008 marquee restoration is Higgins’ favorite project. “Site surveys, planning and permitting,” he enthuses, along with “our ability to take that sign back to its original condition and design intent and fabricate that with high-end, energy-efficient, newest design technology is really the type of challenge that we excel at.”

Working on numerous other historic theatres “has been a really fun process for all of us,” Higgins admits, “but the Rivoli is something that really stands out.” Quite literally so. “It’s the marquee of the city. When you go to Cedarburg, it may violate a few sign codes that they have,” but, given its significance, “everybody was willing to step outside that box because it is a great theatre. What makes this so interesting is that the community was so involved in the project. They had a list of over 200 people volunteering to work at the theatre, from concessions to ticketing. For us to build a sign back in 1936 and to come back 70-plus years later, look at the existing steel, replace and renovate with new technologies was really a great opportunity. Having Jerry Poblocki…to oversee the entire project from original conception to completion was excellent.”

“Throughout the 1930s to 1970s, everything was incandescent lighting, which takes a small nuclear power plant to run today,” Higgins further reviews. “Next came fluorescent lighting in all your backlit signage and poster cases. With a shelf life of six to twelve months, you were constantly going in and changing them out. Not only were those lamps using more energy, but they were also increasing the environmental footprint of having to dispose of them.” With the introduction of 60% more energy-efficient LEDs (light-emitting diodes) over the last decade, however, “Poblocki has created a custom back-lit lighting application that can be used at a 2.5-inch [63 mm] depth.” What’s great about that, as Higgins explains, is that “theatres can renovate their old signage and their old poster cases without having to recess them into the walls.” The four or five-inch deep (127 mm) light boxes of old “would not be ADA-compliant” otherwise. “With the LED application, you can add channel letters on the side of a building, restroom signs and poster cases and plug them right into the wall.”

The current trend towards all-digital and electronic signage, which Poblocki incorporates extensively in all areas as well, Higgins ascribes to a changing demographic. “The younger generation prefers to learn about showtime information over the Internet and on their mobile phones. And there is still the older demographic that, surprisingly enough, still prefers to look at the starting times out front when driving up to the actual theatre. Having a large electronic theatre marquee featuring a digital display that integrates into the theatre system to automatically update showtimes,” he has observed, “draws more attention, clearly. It’s eye-catching and easier to update. You’re not sending people at $10 per hour outside to manually change these film times anymore. It’s all done wirelessly.”

For those concerned with ambient lighting conditions and potential costs of going fully electronic, Poblocki recently introduced its Tech-Line poster case. Combining a “traditional back-lit static poster with an electronic display for automatically updated showtimes at the bottom,” Higgins finds, “adds a lot of value to the theatre.” The digital movie poster cases are “a great product” too “because they allow you to really advertise, show movie previews and add static poster art all in once place.” While it is inevitable that “the industry will go that way, their price point is still hard for many theatres to get over. You have to sell a lot of popcorn in order to buy a $5,000 display.”

Referring to exterior applications with glare and sunlight, he says that Poblocki’s Tech-Line combines “the best of both worlds, with the newest technology of electronic display showtimes and the static poster backed by energy-efficient LED lighting.”

Efficiency and savings, according to Higgins, are determining the industry outlook as well. “In a recession like today, people are not expanding into new theatres, perhaps, but they are really updating and renovating the ones that they have.” Doing just that has been a “great market” for Poblocki as well. “We’ll go into your existing poster cases to replace the plastic doors with tempered glass for a more high-end feel and better resistance to vandalism. The fluorescent lamps in cases and sign boxes are replaced with Light-Mat technology that we use in the Tech-Line. It’s an easy conversion that offers great energy savings—LED on a typical poster case amounts to $45 per year. In addition, this lighting doesn’t burn through, fade or discolor the individual chain of letters or posters that you are displaying.”

Returning to the questions posed in our opening paragraph, Marcus Higgins provides the closing answer. “We say ‘Challenge Us,’ because there is no theatre or signage dilemma that we haven’t faced in our 77-year history and nothing that our experienced staff couldn’t help you with.”




Restoring the Rivoli
In the early 1930s, the city of Cedarburg, Wisconsin transformed a 1880s dry-goods store into its community cinema. The New Rivoli Theatre opened January 11, 1936, with A Tale of Two Cities showing behind its Art Deco façade. The Marcus Corp. procured the Rivoli in 1956 and operated it for 50 more years, selling it back to the Cedarburg Landmark Preservation Society in December 2006, which had already launched “Revive the Rivoli” with a fundraising goal of $800,000.

One of the first steps was to hire Poblocki Sign Co. to “recreate the façade’s signature, historic signage” thereby bringing back “the majesty and glamour of the cinema’s original marquee,” which had been altered over the years and was finally removed as part of 1970s modernization efforts.

First, the Poblocki team reviewed photos from an old theatre brochure and created a scaled drawing, which the project’s architect revised to a vertical orientation to include a “waterfall”-shaped design. Next they developed the overall shell, along with some of the aluminum parts, and rendered detailed shop drawings. Measuring 20 feet wide by 26 feet tall and 9 feet at its deepest point (6 x 8 x 2.75 m), the new marquee stretches across the building’s entire face and over the roof. That in conjunction with having “to work around an existing, steel support structure,” not to mention the building settling unevenly over the years, made “designing a large, attractive sign that wouldn’t overload the building’s capacity…challenging.”

The production team decided to manufacture the new marquee from aluminum rather than iron, which was used to make the original and weighed about two-thirds more. After cutting the aluminum, 14 journeyman and sheet-metal workers buffed, drilled, sawed and welded the structure. Fabricators ground and washed the sign with dual-action sanders, air files and a phosphoric-acid wash to eliminate any scratches or imperfections to prep the aluminum for painting. From there, staff electricians wired power and illumination for 274 lamps and 306 linear feet (93 m) of ruby-red neon and argon. All in all, 550 manufacturing man-hours were expended before a three-man team completed installation within one week.

Today, the 280-seat Rivoli Theatre thrives, not only in the community showing second-run movies for $3, but also as the last remaining single-screen theatre in Oconomowoc County. For more information, visit www.rivoliofcedarburg.com.

(Adapted from company information written by Jerry Poblocki, son of company founder Ben Poblocki.)