Cima Network helps deliver the Regal Premium Experience.
By Bill Lockett
Bill Lockett is president of Cima Network (Philadelphia), a sign-design and project-management firm.
Regal Entertainment Group (REG), operator of Regal Cinemas, envisioned a bold movie experience that would captivate its audience. This motivation birthed the Regal Premium Experience (RPX), which Regal describes as "a custom-built premium environment featuring elegant and luxurious seats with high-back headrests, a giant immersive screen illuminated by high-quality digital projectors and completed with a state-of-the-art sound system.”
RPX theaters seat 420 and feature 60-ft.-wide screens illuminated by dual, 3-D-capable, digital projectors. Their 100,000-watt sound systems produce 9.1 channels of sound complemented by eight, 21-in.-diameter subwoofers, which create plenty of “rumble.” To create allure to capture moviegoer’s imagination, REG sought a bold design and branding concept that would establish a standard for future RPX theatres.
-->Cima Network VP Keith Denny worked with REG’s Kate Kornhaus, its director of sign services, and the Regal marketing department to create the RPX logo, which would embody the movie experience. We also collaborated on the design with Bob McCall of JKR Partners, a Philadelphia-based leader in movie-theatre architecture. The theatre entrance comprises supersized, 6 ft. 6 in.-tall, RPX channel letters with a color-changing element inside the “X,” and an illuminated, color-changing column with a pill-shaped, pan sign that reads “RPX” with blue, linear LED accent lighting.
A napkin and a brainstorm
JKR Partners devised the RPX theater blueprint and, with REG’s approval, Cima and the fabricator, Custom Finishers (Levittown, PA), pursued the project’s ambitious, four-week turnaround time. RPX’s first installation, at Regal’s E-Walk 13 in NYC, had to be ready for the opening night of Iron Man 2 last May.
This was no ordinary project. First, we had to install 78-in.-tall, reverse-lit channel letters flush to a convex, curved-glass tile wall. Second, we had to sync the color-changing lightsource inside a 7-ft.-tall, acrylic column with the illuminated portion of the “X.” The colors had to fade from green to blue, two of the most challenging colors to illuminate effectively. Finally, to comply with ADA requirements, the letter “X” and its push-through acrylic face could protrude no more than 4 in. off the wall. This allowed only 3 in. depth for installing the lightsource.
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