As cinemas restart, what role do integrators play?

Restart: The integrators’ view

With audience confidence slowly recovering, what can the engineering teams that manage sound and projection do to support restarting cinemas? CT asks two of the UK’s leading integrators for their views.

André Mort

Technical Director, Cinema Next A FTER MONTHS OF UNCERTAINTY across all business sectors (exhibition, distribution and production), cinemas have demonstrated now that they can successfully open with a range of safety measures in place. Social distancing, seat allocation, removal of “pick & mix”, pre-booked paperless ticketing, face masks, hand sanitisers and rigid cleaning regimes allow exhibitors to fulfil their role — to ensure that customers feel safe and offer the best possible out of home experience. Our role, as integrators, is to make sure cinemas can concentrate on front of house activities. Anything we can do to see that staff are not having to worry about sound and projection will ensure the focus is on the customer experience.

Manufacturers have been hugely supportive and have published guidelines to safeguard equipment when it is powered up/down on a regular basis, and content has been run to check servers are operating correctly. This information is widely available, and every integrator has supported their installed base. With cinemas opening again, integrators have been visiting each site, testing the TMS and the audio, running content, cleaning lenses (if needed), installing any required software updates and making sure that the presentation is a) reliable and b) of excellent quality.

We need people back in cinemas — let us make sure they enjoy it enough to come again — and again and again.

A financial crisis

During these months, integrators have taken a generous view of outstanding monies — with cinemas shut and earning little, if any, revenue, this hasn’t been the time to add to their worries by chasing invoices. As they reopen, cinemas will need our support, and often parts, lamps, engineer visits and training — and we will all expect those old invoices to be paid. It has to be said: exhibitors do recognise the importance of their support network and have made efforts to bring accounts up to date.

It is likely that investment programmes will be reviewed and there will be cutbacks. Finance will be more difficult to obtain, in the short term, as banks watch to see balance sheets return to normal. Integrators can help. There’s financial support available from manufacturers (they want to keep selling new kit!), payments can be spread out, rental models are being designed and there have been discussions regarding shared ownership. The VPF model or anything similar will not return, but there will be various financial models available.

Sweat the assets

The UK market, in particular, has an aging estate of projectors. Many exhibitors were looking to replace these in a managed fashion, and this is likely to be delayed for some. Our role, as integrators, is to help exhibitors “sweat the assets” but also to show savings achievable with the new equipment available, and also to highlight where presentation is not as good as it could be and to recommend upgrades, repurposing of existing equipment, power management savings, greater automation, and more hardware/software integration. Greater flexibility for content gives more control to cinema owners, allowing them to maximise revenue opportunities. Live events, private hire and film festivals are eased when integrators design flexibility into the system, which should be as “hands-free” as possible. Manufacturers have extended warranties to cover the “closed” period and we need to make sure our records are up to date and reflect the change in warranty end date.

In summary — our role as integrators is easy. All we need to do is ensure that S&P is the best it can be, that it is automatic and “hands free” and that the cinema knows that “it just works”.

Fact File

CinemaNext

CinemaNext has its main office in Liège-Blegny, Belgium, with . offices across Europe. The company focuses on four core areas: sales and field services, software solutions, NOC, and consulting.

Simon Tandy

Managing Director, Omnex W HILE YOU PROBABLY WOULDN’T consider “CT” to be the Fox News of the cinema business, I do wonder when will the madness stop? We’ve seen our industry adopt some of the best sociallydistanced, ‘Covid-safe’ environments, yet our friends in Dublin have just been slapped with a secondwave lockdown. In much of the UK, we’re seeing localised lockdowns, and now we’re being told we can socialise — but only until 10pm! Has the cinema sector, or indeed any of the hospitality and leisure sectors, been considered at all?! I’m not one for public ranting — perhaps I should be — so with that aside, we at Omnex have had to think hard about how we can support the sector. This is a relationships business, after all. We were here long before the pandemic and it is relationships that will keep us all here long after.

Easing out of lockdown…

As we eased out of lockdown, the Omnex team continued to install and maintain sound and projection equipment. Clearly, for some, the appetite to move forward is high. Since July, we have opened brand-new cinemas; from boutique two-screens to all-laser with Atmos six-plex sites. We’ve seen some great value projects complete and have installed nearly 2,000 seats,

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Fact File

Omnex

Founded in 1987, Omnex supplies, installs, services and maintains technologies to independent cinemas and cinema chains throughout the UK and Ireland. upgraded surround speakers, and fully refurbished sound and projection rooms. This consideration for superior technology reflects how cinemas take the customer experience seriously.

Despite my eternal optimism, though, it is important to consider the impact of Covid and more importantly the effects of continued or further localised restrictions.

Free servicing: help where it counts most

For those in a position to upgrade technology… great! But most will need to make the best they can from existing equipment. It is in place and already on par with the experience. Right now, technology represents a cost that can be overridden by other priorities. As such, Omnex pleased to announce this month a new ‘free-service’ model to support cinemas and aid cashflow to help ensure they can keep the best picture on screen.

As the pandemic continues, restarting cinemas is less about the technical approach, switching on equipment after a prolonged absence, and more about a fundamental existential approach. Service providers like Omnex and our colleagues across the industry can handle the technical side for exhibitors. It’s what we do best. But perhaps the right thing to do for cinemas restarting is to give them material support — tangible financial benefits such as a free service model — that genuinely helps them where they’ve been hit the hardest.