Opportunities for high-visibility digital signage installations throughout Europe in preparation for the London 2012 Olympic Games this summer are so big they're hard to miss. We're already seeing creative digital signage popping up across the UK, many with a focus on public spaces.

Panasonic is the official Worldwide Olympic Partner for the games and the Japanese electronics manufacturer is hard at work installing dozens of screens of various shapes and sizes for the slew of qualifiers and test events the city of London's been hosting. Panasonic's 33.6sq m outdoor LED screen with brightness capabilities designed to handle heavy exposure to sunlight has already made an appearance in London's Trafalgar Square for Olympic countdown events.

In addition to huge-scale LEDs, we're also expecting to see a wave of pre-Games installations of 3D-capable Panasonic plasma screens in and around the Olympic Park near Hackney, London and peppered throughout Olympic venues. "We have already agreed to install three 152" (3.9m) 3D-ready plasmas and a further 42 103" (2.6m) screens," says Vincent Slevin, country manager of Panasonic's UK professional display division. "[These] will be hung from flying brackets mounted around Olympic stadia ceilings and used as 'repeater screens' so that people will be able to enjoy the Olympic Games from all views in full high-definition."

Past the official partnership between Panasonic and the London Games however, smaller companies and indeed smaller cities and towns are looking to harness the attention-grabbing power of digital signage. Installations of these so-called 'Live Sites' are planned for public areas in 22 UK cities including Plymouth, Bristol and Norwich and will offer opportunities for communities to watch and celebrate the games in out-of-home environments.

In Lincoln city centre, for instance, the Lincoln Business Improvement Group has announced events starting in March centred around a huge-format outdoor screen in the Cornhill area's 'mini Olympic park'. The aim of the project is to promote tourism and commerce by bringing crowds outdoors, increasing footfall on the high street and creating a world-class platform for advertisers.

In Victoria Park, East London events promoter Live Nation will be showing BBC coverage of the Games on a big screen from July 26th to August 12th, a space expected to attract up to 75,000 spectators each day.

Panasonic and other companies' ambitious digital signage plans are slated to make London the global centre for out-of-home advertising this summer, and quite possibly for years to come. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) appointed McCann Erickson marketing coordinator for the games back in 2009. McCann has since been developing commercial and Olympic content for the LOCOG-endorsed CBS Outdoor UK network of traditional and digital out-of-home sites across the UK.

Other companies like communications and LED solutions provider The ADI Group are taking a different approach. By making large-format screens available for private hire, ADI hopes to capitalise on the new-found appetite for the medium. ADI is offering 15, 25 and 36sq m screens which include local PA systems, built-in control rooms and terrestrial broadcast feeds. The screens can be hired for specific events or in increments of three weeks or three months.

All this innovation, however, isn't limited to London 2012. The Berlin Games in 1936 were the first sporting event to broadcast on television, while during the London 1948 games the BBC became the first network to make the Games viewable from home. For the Sydney Games in 2000 fun but arguably functionless virtual imaging technologies for broadcast were introduced, which allowed spectators to watch the sportspeople compete against ghost-like world record-holding figures from the past. Some years before Sydney, digital broadcast technology firm Quantel achieved the first digital effects for television broadcast during the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Although these were, by today's standards, crude animated images, the moving graphics were lauded at the time for bringing networks the ability to incorporate new levels of graphic design into broadcast.

Which brings us back to 2012, the first Olympic Games to be widely available for 3D viewing at home and outdoors. Here too Panasonic technology will play its part, providing the games with 3D cameras, recorders and other broadcast technologies which, as we've seen, will be on display both in and outside the home.

The London 2012 Olympic games will be among the most visible and exciting times for digital signage to date. So make sure your company doesn't miss out on the opportunity.