Attractions Management Issue 1 2011 - TourismInsights

Mirage3D fulldome
production Natural
Selection is among
the films which will
be shown
There are four theatres, which have been
custom designed to accommodate the wide
range of media that the planetarium plans to
offer to its extensive target audiences.
The predicted annual attendance figure is
1.6 million visitors – this is highly achievable
due to the central location and heritage
of the planetarium, yet as a
projected figured, hugely exceeds
attendance numbers of similar facilities
around the world.
There are more than 200 exhibits
in the museum in addition to the
theatres. The museum has its own
(heated!) underground car park,
conference facilities, food halls
and gift stores. Everything has
been planned to maximise visitor
numbers and retention. The interchangeable
and configurable nature of every area
within the museum will meet the demand of
large visitor numbers of all ages across corporate,
public and state programs.
The client didn’t want any limitations with
its new theatres and worked closely with us
to ensure our designs matched, or exceeded,
their expectations. The core objective was of
flexibility and scalability for the future. The
new Space Museum in Moscow will be one
of the most technologically advanced visitor
experiences in the world.
The core theme of the planetarium’s chosen
media will continue to be astronomy, but the
team are keen to introduce varied genres.
This will attract different audiences and meet
the state’s educational objectives, while also
strongly positioning the attraction as a highly
competitive and enticing venue for people of
all ages and backgrounds. We’re integrating
a range of shows, including nWave productions
for the 4D and large-format theatres
and fulldome shows from Mirage3D and
Spitz for the planetariums.
The turnkey approach we’ve taken means
that we’re pre-programming each of the new
shows to fully integrate with all the various
effects. In particular, the D-Box Motion Code
system has been fine-tuned exclusively for
the theatres to offer audiences precision
motion throughout the show.
The scope of each of the projects is extensive
and the client had clear ideas of its
needs before Global Immersion entered the
project. As ideas and concepts for each of
the theatres were refined through detailed
analysis of existing and road-mapped technologies,
we were all in agreement
that we wanted to use leadingedge
product releases throughout
the facility. Many of the systems
have been designed by Global
Immersion from scratch to ensure
that, once delivered, they remain
up to date and state-of-the-art.
In addition to the core theatre
solutions, we’re supplying a telescope
and observatory solution.
This includes two 16in (40cm) telescopes
– one night time, one day time – and
high speed and resolution CCD (video and
still) capture cameras, which will be used for
content creation and near real-time display
for the main planetarium.
We’ll also be able to take telescope data
from the two adjacent observatories and
bring these datasets into the dome theatres
to present to audiences. The chief
astronomer at the facility plans to show
home-captured telescope data simultaneously
with the digital panorama and starball
systems in the main planetarium.
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AM 1 2011 ©cybertrek 2011