COMFORT, STYLE, CHOICE

Getting your home cinema seating correct is essential for any successful media room or home cinema project. The Pulse Cinemas team offer their insight.

The seats are a chance to really make a design statement

Kapes Patel, company COO, comments, “Updating our own demo facilities this year and opening new demo spaces has focused our minds on just how important comfortable, well designed seating is within any home cinema system, As one who most often focuses on the technical performance of the projects we are involved with, its worth noting that the seats do indeed impact the audio in a space and this not only has to be appreciated but embraced as the impact can be positive when handled correctly. For the end user, the seats perhaps will be one of the most important aspects of their cinema. Remember they care more about how their home looks than squeezing every last drop of performance from an AVR (that is our job of course). But it is also our job to provide customers with a huge amount of choice and support when it comes to choosing their seating so that it delivers the comfort and functionality they want, but style too.”

Pulse Cinemas CEO, Mike Beatty, contributes, “There is a reason we have been working with in-house interior designers here at Pulse for a long time now. Cinemas need to perform of course, but they also need to feel sumptuous, special and comfortable. Seating is right at the heart of this equation and customers really care about it. In every area, its important to exceed expectations and this includes the seating, if we can offer customers something they have never seen, felt or experienced before, we are doing that and winning hearts and minds, not just with customers either, but with the design community too. We are privileged at Pulse that we are able to call on the vast experience and expertise of Fortress Seating for all of our home cinema needs.

Michaele Ford, Sales Development Coordinator at Pulse Cinemas and one of the Fortress Seating specialists at the company, says, “Working with this brand is such a privilege for us.

The trend for less traditional seats continues

The incredibly impressive range and level of quality we are able to offer, no matter what the need, makes life easy. Offering the choice customer’s want is so key here as most want to feel some ownership of this part of the project in particular. As few of them are experts in AV they are guided by either one of the Pulse team or their dealer when it comes to that side of things, but when it comes to furnishings, customers like input and so having such a vast range of styles, layouts, fabrics and price points is imperative. If we are going to create home cinemas that people are going to spend hours in, then of course they need to be super comfortable and super cool looking too.”

FROM THE MAKER’S MOUTH

Gabi Wolper, Vice President At Fortress Seating has some strong views on the recent market for home cinema seating.

Gabi reveals, “The demand for theater seating has been extremely strong over the last few years and the style and configurations tend to run the full gamut leaning toward the more contemporary styles. And while people were staying at home because of the pandemic, I think there will still be a strong demand for dedicated home cinemas, because there is a large population of people that just prefer to watch movies in the comfort of their own home. With more first run content being available along with the advancement of the audio video equipment, the comfort of watching movies at home has become even more desirable.”

Gabi adds, “Regarding the configurations we see, there are the purists who want typical rows of theater seating, and then there are the hybrid theaters, where they do a traditional row of theater seats in the back row and then in the front row do something with a more relaxed lounge type design, where people can stretch out and lay down. We are able to provide solutions for both options, but I’d say the traditional configurations continue to be more popular.

“While people are spending more time with family enjoying what their media room or dedicated theater offers, they also seek more creature comforts to enhance that enjoyment in the form of a very wide range of accessories. Very much in demand are tray tables; adjustable head rests; pocket arms which create individual seats when the arms are down or one long sofa for stretching out when the arms are up; lumbar support; USB Ports, heat and massage and lighted cup holders just to mention a few.”

Gabi continues, “Although the range in people’s preferences of models and configurations is very broad, the core stipulation is always comfort. Seating is personal. A good cinema seat needs to be comfortable and support your body. Everybody is built differently and requires different comfort levels. You are going to be seated for two plus hours and you don’t want to be distracted from the movie because of comfort. While we have seen a few supply chain issues over the past years, we’ve done what we can to avoid any interruption in our manufacturing by keeping more parts in inventory, so we’ve been fortunate that the supply chain problems of the past few years didn’t really affect us.

“Even though the economic outlook is a bit cloudy at the moment, I think there will still be a strong demand on the high-end side of the market. Because we manufacture all our seating, we are able to offer a lot of customisation. Whether it be design, dimension or a particular accessory we are able to fulfill a need when the audio video integrator or designer has a client with a particular demand, and they insist on solutions to meet their requirements.”

So, what about the future, Gabi says, “I see the dedicated home theater or media room becoming more and more popular. Partly because the more theaters there are the more others see what can be done. It is also the convenience of being able to watch what you what when you want to. Whether it’s the integrator, interior designer or homeowner, people today know what they want and do not want to settle for less. Fortress is well positioned to provide these products because we never thought ourselves as home theater seating, we thought of ourselves as furniture manufacturers.”

Pulse Cinemas reference cinema is fully fitted with Fortress Seating