Arts advertisements in Prague subway

The subway of Prague is a favourite place to advertise. Advertisers can choose from billboards in stations, car panels, ads on lifts and escalators, banners or floor vinyls. Posters on escalators are a very popular channel of commercial arts advertising.

When running up and down the escalators you have approximately 120 seconds of empty space, which commuters are keenly filling in reading advertisement posters. Among clothing, language schools, travel agencies, various airlines and sport centres, cultural events are advertised this way a lot.

Publishing houses announce releases of bestselling authors, such as Paulo Coelho, Dan Brown or Stieg Larsson, film producers let public know about blockbuster and other potentially successful premieres (movies with world famous actors cast, movies based on popular books…). Neither theatre drops behind – advertised are opening nights of big stages including National Theatre, the same way as new musical shows. Exhibitions are the least promoted kind of art in Prague subway. When it yet appears, it is mostly matter of photography exhibitions, which are warmly received by majority.

The reason for advertising entirely commercial arts on subway posters is easy to guess: when using an escalator you have only a couple of seconds for reading every poster, which means there is no time to contemplate. This way of advertising is therefore beneficent only for commercials on popular names and labels. However, alternative arts such as hip-hop battles or extreme music concerts are advertised on subway too, but differently (e. g. illegal stickers on train doors).