As the industry is battling the impact of the epidemic, Empire Cinemas has chosen a new kind of a weapon: Opening a premium cinema boosted by FLEXOUND Augmented Audio. The novel technology offers a superior immersive experience compared to in-home-entertainment.
The theatre in Al Andalus Mall in Jeddah, KSA, hosts 142 seats boosted by FLEXOUND Augmented Audio and opens on December 17th, 2020, premiering “Wonder Woman 2”.
FLEXOUND Augmented Audio adds the sensation of touch to sound. It offers equal sound quality in every seat independent of the seat location. It improves the clarity of dialogue and low frequencies as well as allows the moviegoer to feel the sound. Cinemas enhanced by FLEXOUND in South Korea, Finland and Malaysia prove that the concept offers unique immersive feeling, high end-user value and allow premium priced ticketing.
“Empire Cinemas is proud to be the first cinema operator in the region to have installed augmented audio technology seats through its association with FLEXOUND Augmented Audio, the leader in its field”, says Gino Haddad, the CEO of Empire Cinemas.
“The East Asian cinema market indicates that audiences want to return to the big screens. We give the cinema operators a high value competitive audio advantage over the in-home-entertainment, helping the industry to recover”, FLEXOUND Head of Seated Entertainment, Jessica Wang-Kärnä adds.
The technology requires no wearable accessories. It complements all current sound systems without interference. No remix or recoding of the content is needed and thus cinema operators can enhance with FLEXOUND any films, e-sports or live events.
“Escapism and extraordinary experiences are what we need during these challenging times, and FLEXOUND cinema experience is just the right answer”, says FLEXOUND Chief of Cinema, Mika Oesch, while on-the-road in Jeddah.
The seats for Empire Cinemas Andalus project are supplied by Ferco International Seating who has gained FLEXOUND certification for four of their seat models. FLEXOUND Augmented Audio is also available for auditoriums, museums, theatres, concert halls and any other venues with seated audience.
About FLEXOUND
FLEXOUND Augmented Audio is designed and engineered in Finland. The multinational team started the work in 2015 to help autistic children by adding the sensation of touch to music. Now the versatile, globally unique and patented technology can be embedded into cinema or car seats, gaming chairs, cushions, furniture and more. FLEXOUND is a member of the International Cinema Technology Association.
About Empire Cinemas
Welcome to the World of Empire, an Empire 100 years in the making. A family business created by the visionary Georges N. Haddad in 1919. It has already seen three generations with one common passion: Entertainment. We create excitement and anticipation to audiences in the field of entertainment and movies, through creativity and innovation. In addition to our network in Lebanon, we reaffirm our leadership temperament, by developing our brand portfolio and expand our geographical coverage a 13 screens cinema in Erbil. With our 100 years of involvement in cinema exhibition, we are excited to play an important role in the strong growth of Saudi Arabia’s emerging entertainment sector, with 14 locations within the coming 3 to 4 years. Empire Cinemas is inspirationally creative – consistently striving to set the industry standard; in fact, our edge is at managing cinematic experiences from sight and sound to further dimensional mind moving effects. Our top priority is creating an exceptional movie experience for cinemagoers, investing in comfort and providing exceptional experiences for moviegoers. In addition to technical excellence we bring to the table a wealth of unique & innovative products in terms of projection and sound equipment; this is why we tailor every cinema location to the surrounding market-place and customer preferences.