PLANETARIUMS
Science on a Sphere is an astronaut’s view of the earth’s weather
is up by at least 40 per cent. We’re open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays, with four showings per day. During the week, the theatre serves the
university (we have 2,500 astronomy stu- dents each year).
How have you marketed the new dome? Getting the word out has been a chal- lenge, but numbers have grown mostly through word of mouth. Once people come to see a show, they seem to really like it and tell all their friends. And we’ve had great success in offering
deals via Groupon and Living Social, such as offering 2 for 1 ticket deals. In our last Groupon offer, we sold a month’s worth of tickets in just one day. I think there’s a branding challenge with planetariums in general. If your big, beautiful new dome is called a planetar- ium, rather than a digital video theatre, then people only associate it with the stars and planets, whereas of course you can project anything from volcanoes to underwater exploration. People tend to know that an Imax is a big blank screen that you can fi ll with different content, but what we essentially have here is a big blank dome that can do the same.
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“We’re confi dent we can produce high quality, compelling content and hire it out at a much lower price”
What are your plans for the future? We really want to concentrate on mov- ing into the production of our own digital content that can be distributed worldwide. We have a niche set up here with our wealth of scientists plus our fi lm school. Full dome theatres in places like New
York can afford to produce content with voiceovers from movie stars, such as Tom Hanks. Hiring those movies might cost around $30,000 (E21,800, £18,000) per year. We’re confi dent that we can produce high quality, compelling content and hire it out at a much lower price. We have access to exclusive and excit-
ing events, such as the next mission to Mars and work on the Hubble Space
Read Attractions Management online
attractionsmanagement.com/digital
Telescope, both led by the University of Colorado. The university’s linked to leading world events, so should be a world-leading communicator.
What are the trends for full dome? I’m going to make a bold prediction. I think that 10 years from now, or as soon as the transmission of data becomes good enough, people will be able to sit in a theatre at a live viewing and watch a leading archaeologist (wearing something like Google’s fi sh eye camera) walking through Pompeii or trekking through the Grand Canyon, giving a presenta- tion that’s projected in real time onto the dome thousands of miles away. That will make for truly compelling content. What I’d also say is that scientists have
traditionally been quite weak in commu- nicating their work and defending their positions. They have to come out of their laboratories and focus on doing a better job of communicating their discover- ies, using all the technology available to them. Not just to attract essential funding, but so they can win the public’s understanding, interest and confi dence. We live in a science and technology-dom- inated age, so it’s important for everyone to understand what’s going on. ●
AM 2 2014 ©Cybertrek 2014
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