At CinemaCon, we heard a lot of discussion about opportunities for the theater lobby. Barco has a several-year old initiative in this area called “Lobby Domination” and at CinemaCon they showed off some new possibilities and announced a new alliance.
One Network Alliance is the partnership formed by Barco and Vision Media Management. It is really a marketing and promotional effort to help raise awareness of the solutions and to offer comprehensive offerings to exhibitors.
Vision Media Management is the major player in the theater lobby responsible for creating all the signage that goes on light boxes to highlight coming attractions and other advertisements. But these are static signs so the partnership is aimed at advancing the transition from static to dynamic signage. Barco’s Lobby Experience has the hardware and software to support digital signage, which is why the two teamed up.
The goal is to transform the lobby into an engaging, revenue-generating entertainment center, boosting concessions and advance ticket sales via interactive experiences and media takeovers of the entire lobby space. This means advertising, trailers, and special content – so kind of an extension of the pre-feature content to the lobby. But it is going beyond this and mimicking the trends in the digital signage space with collection of video images and analytics on who is watching the digital content. This can be used to sell advanced ticket, merchandise, popcorn and more. Barco also showed a cute augmented reality demo designed to enhance the in-theater lobby experience (photo of the author with a virtual BB8). They say the lobby is now a priority of the studios and exhibitors. – CC
