This week I was on the road in Canada, the trees were exploding in a spectrum of fall colors and there was definitely a nip in the air. It has different energy than the USA, it’s laid back and highly innovative at the same time. I suspect because population wide the country is about ten percent of the USA, it finds itself much more nimble when it comes to market innovation. While in Montreal I visited with Vincenzo Guzzo, an exhibitor who I feel is refreshingly candid and innovative. If you want the facts about this business just ask Vincenzo, he tells it like it is. He runs a tight ship and is expanding rapidly. Keep an eye on what he is doing, he is getting a lot of things right.
His country man, Ellis Jacob now on point at NATO is also a more than innovative exhibitor. As head of the Canadian based chain Cineplex, Ellis has been frequently on the forefront of innovations that are shaping this industry. He also has realized that his profit centers had better move beyond the exhibition of movies; he has launched his company into screen advertising, arcade games, and virtual reality.
Virtual reality or VR is an interactive computer-generated experience that usually takes place within a computer generated environment. This environment can look like our real world or it can be a total fantasy, where you fight off Orcs, zombies, or space aliens by basically creating an experience that is not possible in an ordinary reality. VR technology uses virtual reality headsets or multi-projected environments to generate realistic like images, sounds and other sensations that simulate a user’s physical presence in a virtual environment. A person using virtual reality equipment is able to see 360 degrees around in the imaginary world and interact with computer generated images.
Cineplex operates 162 theatres across Canada. The company operates theatres under numerous brands, including Cineplex Cinemas, Cineplex Odeon, SilverCity, Galaxy Cinemas, Cinema City, Famous Players, Scotiabank Theatres, and Cineplex VIP Cinemas. Cineplex also owns and operates multiple brands for entertainment including UltraAVX, Xscape Entertainment Centre, Player One Amusement Group, and restaurants OutTakes and Poptopia. In North America they are leading the race for premise diversification which is likely the future of urban based multiplexes.
Earlier this month, Cineplex announced it had struck a strategic partnership with Seattle-based VRstudios that includes a “significant” equity investment in the maker of commercial virtual reality arcades. Cineplex will install 40 VRstudios arcades in its multiplexes and location-based entertainment centers across Canada by 2021. In order to protect their investment in the VR space, they made a significant investment into VRstudios
Both Cineplex and VRstudios made the comment in the press that “broader expansion opportunities” exist in North America and elsewhere outside Canada. VRstudios sells its commercial VR experiences to theme parks, arcades, amusement parks, family entertainment centers, casinos and theatrical multiplexes. Expect Cineplex to lead a marketing effort to bring VR into the multiplex environment most likely on some form of revenue share program.
Cineplex tested out a VRstudios attraction at an entertainment venue in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, before firming up an agreement with the U.S. Partner.
“We are not just deploying VR across our network, we are strategically investing in the market to create new revenue streams as well as critical mass and scale for growth,” Cineplex president and CEO Ellis Jacob said in a recent press release. As stated before Cineplex’s intent is to provide VR attractions in its multiplexes as it looks to diversify away from traditional Hollywood exhibition to attract more Canadians to its non-Hollywood offerings.
US based chains such as the amazing Cinergy Entertainment are also leading the way in taking focus off of the big screen and moving towards the virtual screen. By implementing the VR attraction Hologate, Cinergy is expanding its market focus and moving away from solely relying on what is on screen.
A derivative of virtual reality, augmented reality, is also being toyed within a theatrical environment. Augmented reality is a form of VR that layers virtual information over some kind of live video feeds that signal back into a headset or through a smartphone or tablet device giving the user the ability to interact with a variety of three-dimensional images.
National Cinemedia. The movie advertising company that is deciding what it wants to be when it grows up has started something they call Noovie Arcade. In the words of NCM, Noovie ARcade is the revolutionary app that combines the Big Screen at your local movie theater with Augmented Reality for a gaming experience like no other! To be frank, it has had a less than illustrious start because it was skewing the content to younger audiences and pairing it in auditoriums that were screening movies that appealed to the fifty plus crowd. You are not going to see Mama Mia 2 and warm up to that particular movie by blowing up spaceships flying out of the screen on your cell phone.
Now NCM is releasing Noovie ARcade Halloween Experience on 20,800 screens. So in 1650 theaters managed by AMC, Cinemark, Regal Entertainment Group and dozens of local exhibitors audience will have a chance to see zombies and other foul creatures stream out of the theater screen. Again they are imposing content and not providing the audience with a choice. Noe if they came up with a AR experience that allowed audience members to send missiles in the direction of on screen advertising….that could be a real winner.
In the spring NCM launched the Noovie Arcade app and has a base of about 1,000,000 users.
NCM has created and released for the app four original AR games that moviegoers can play on their phones before the beginning of the movie. In their game Cinevaders, a worm hole opens in the theater, aliens pour out and the user protects fellow moviegoers by destroying the alien with laser enabled cell phones. It also has a game where audiences members can shoot M&Ms out of a cannon onto the screen.
While NCM claims that these are the first AR enabled theatrical experiences, I would make the argument that folks like William Castle and Kroger Babb long ago pioneered a similar experience like introducing Smell-O-Vision and placing electrical buzzers on seats for the showing of the movie “The Tingler”
I think that Cineplex and Cinergy are thought leaders in what a theater can become. NCM needs to be a bit more focused on it’s offerings. In order get audience engagement they may want to reduce the release of their Noovie ARcade app to accompany only certain genre relevant movies. If they want to engage audiences, they may want to take a cue from the master, William Castle himself. Here is the preamble that came on screen before the movie “The Tingler”.
“I am William Castle, the director of the motion picture you are about to see. I feel obligated to warn you that some of the sensations—some of the physical reactions which the actors on the screen will feel—will also be experienced, for the first time in motion picture history, by certain members of this audience. I say ‘certain members’ because some people are more sensitive to these mysterious electronic impulses than others. These unfortunate, sensitive people will at times feel a strange, tingling sensation; other people will feel it less strongly. But don’t be alarmed—you can protect yourself. At any time you are conscious of a tingling sensation, you may obtain immediate relief by screaming. Don’t be embarrassed about opening your mouth and letting rip with all you’ve got, because the person in the seat right next to you will probably be screaming too. And remember—a scream at the right time may save your life.”
I think that VR as a whole can lessen the dependency on Hollywood and expand the life of the theater going experience.
