Blogs

In March of this year, the Giant Screen Cinema Association (GSCA) held its inaugural Filmmaker Symposium event as part of its annual 2015 Film Expo in Los Angeles, California. In addition to the dozens of presenters speaking about a variety of topics ranging from giant-screen production & post-production technology to the business of giant-screen, the event also hosted an informal trade show for vendors and suppliers to showcase their wares. I decided to do something a little different. The Filmmakers Symposium drew a diverse crowd of [...]

A relatively recent event made me appreciate the place the Museum of Science has in the hearts and minds of the people of Boston. As many of you know, Leonard Nimoy passed away not all that long ago. I am a big fan of his Dr. Spock role from Star Trek dating as far back as 1966 when, as a kid in Virginia, I first heard him declare “Live Long and Prosper” while I attempted unsuccessfully to manipulate my fingers into the Vulcan salute of friendship. [...]

Does it ever make sense to collaborate with competitors as a marketing strategy? Sometimes it makes perfect sense. Many museums are involved in sponsorship-type free days such as Bank of America Museums on Us or Museum Month. Some are learning that working with competitors to sell shared admission passes works well whether you coordinate it locally or use an outside vendor like City Pass, which is available in 12 cities. The Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is now in its fifth year [...]

Being in Boston, the impacts of weather are unavoidable. In our marketing and promotions at the Museum of Science, Boston, we take advantage of really hot days in the summer by urging visitors to come enjoy time while cooling down in our air conditioned Exhibit Halls or our Mugar Omni Theater. At other times in the year, we urge visitors to escape the rain or snow by enjoying all of the activities they can do indoors at the Museum. However, this winter posed a bigger challenge [...]

Many museum theaters claim that on average, 20% of their audience is comprised of school groups. There is no doubt that this is a substantial number, but could it be even higher? Do you know, as a museum theater, what percentage of the entire local school market this 20% represents? How can you boost your numbers? And how do you get those harder to reach high school kids into your theater? If you don’t already think of education outreach as a promotional tool, that’s the first [...]

By James Hyder, LF Examiner On Oct. 22, more than 60 people gathered at the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond to attend a demonstration of “8K” fulldome projection, organized by the Giant Screen Cinema Association. The demo immediately followed the annual conference of the Association of Science-Technology Centers in Raleigh, NC, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) to the south, and a number of ASTC delegates traveled on a bus the GSCA chartered for the purpose. The museum’s theater opened as an IMAX Dome theater in [...]

As an IMAX dome theater, we review almost all films that are released. Unfortunately, we see ourselves turning down more and more films because we feel that the technical quality is too poor to put on our dome. Our industry and our theater have always been proud of the fact that we have the best film system in the world, and even today I hear that film is still better than digital, or could be better than digital. I am convinced we still have the best [...]

For many years I have been using the GSCA Theater Attendance Reporting Program (TARP) to get an idea how our theater is performing relative to our colleagues. We talk to individual theaters, of course, to get a sense of how our business is doing. You hear a lot through the grapevine about theaters doing not well or doing better, but it's hard to get some objective data that I can present to stakeholders. The GSCA TARP program gives me the ability to measure our theater performance [...]

Would you like to find ways to stretch your advertising budget? Or do you need a big idea to launch your next film?  Would you like to see what other theaters are doing for mobile marketing? Then come and browse through GSCA’s new Marketing Library! There’s nothing like seeing what other theaters are doing to successfully market their films. The GSCA has a wealth of great marketing ideas that have been shared at countless GSCA conferences over the years, and now we have found a way [...]

This year the GSCA conducted an in-depth study of more than 5,000 theater-goers from 36 venues in 12 countries to gain information on them and gauge their thoughts on the giant screen industry, theater experience, film content and more. Topline findings were delivered at the recent GSCA International Conference in Toronto. Here are just a few samples of the data provided. While families with children remain the biggest audience, it’s not the biggest segment for growth, with nearly half (47%) of visitors attending giant screen [...]