Background media? Music, shows etc.

[Saagi]

Does anyone play music in their centers? Are you allowed to, or is there enough noise that nothing is needed to create any sort of an ambiance. Does anyone have a movie, or shows playing just in the back ground? Like maybe an IGN stream, or some sort of special movie night in general? (ex. Die Hard) Just didn't know if it was legal as your aren't directly charging to listen to the music or to watch said show or movie.

[RsteeleAUG]

When we have ads on local radio stations we play those stations. If we aren't running ads I play KROQ out of LA through some of the gaming chairs up front. I mute it when new customers walk in but otherwise It plays all day..In fact starting it up now...

One cool thing is most of our audio chairs all work with the same wireless frequency so we can pump the same music out of every chair in the place.
We've watched movies, we watched E3 Streaming all day for several days.

As long as you aren't illegally downloading anything we've never had any issues with movies or music or games for that matter.

[Alomax]

We alternated between a local hard-rock station, and Pandora.  We played it at a moderate volume, just to fill in the silence when the store is less busy.  Sometimes we played funny youtube videos over the speakers, and occasionally we would have a movie night on the large TV at the front.  Playing movies is probably violates a whole range of copyright/distribution laws, but honestly, who gives a crap.

[Skyshark]

The convention I went to had some great Anime Music Videos...and one that was like Robot Chicken style..showing some overdubbed movie/TV audio cut over video game or animation footage....changing the skits (some 5 seconds some over a minute)....and this had a decent size crowd just watching and buying concessions next to people playing games.

I'm planning on having some video distribution switches to show movies, cable (popular shows/sports), etc as background or atmosphere with some overhead sound.  It will add a little to the budget hardware wise...but is flexible to allow music, A/V, act as a PA, or even allow customers to dock their iPods to share with the others. 

[Deeds]

I played compiled game trailers for upcoming games and then had a event setup on my PCs that if they weren't in use for more then 5 minutes would start playing a Media file off the server that had the most recent gametrailers.  So even when the comps weren't in use they were advertising for what we would have available soon.

-deeds

[johnlarson]

We only have music at one center.  This will change soon and we will have music at each station.

We play the station we advertise on (it is a rock station).

It would be cool to have game trailers playing, especially up front by the counter, with music in the back.