Arts & Entertainment

Maritime Aquarium Shares Plans For New 4D Theater In Norwalk

While the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk will say goodbye to it’s IMAX theater, it will soon offer guests a more immersive theater experience.

The Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk is planning to offer guests a new immersive 4D theater experience. (Photo credit: RJ Scofield) NORWALK, CT — As separate of the Walk Bridge successor project, the Maritime Aquarium ‘s IMAX Theater will be taken down and replaced with a new 4D dramaturgy. The new entertainment venue will allow guests to experience not equitable the sights and sounds of the film they are watching, but besides smells and movements. According to the aquarium ‘s Director of Marketing Tina Tison, this more immersive type of theater experience has become a very democratic propose for other aquariums, menagerie and museums around the area.

“ many guests are interest in having something more interactional and more immersive, ” Tison said. “ The 4D theaters have become identical democratic, so it was one of the options we were looking at when this plan beginning came to lighter. ”
similar to the current IMAX dramaturgy ‘s offerings, the 4D field will chiefly show mission-based films about the ocean, wildlife and other aspects of nature. Guests may be able to experience rain, wind, snow or other sensations during a film, and the seats of the dramaturgy will move at allow moments. The field ‘s substitution is depart of the Maritime Aquarium Functional Replacement Project, wherein the state will functionally replace what is taken at the facility as a result of the Walk Bridge project. During their meet Tuesday, the Common Council authorized Mayor Harry Rilling to execute an agreement with Beyer Blinder Belle Architects and Planners LLP for the Functional Replacement Project to provide architectural design services for a total not to exceed a small over $ 1.5 million. “ What we ‘re doing as partially of the submit fund is functional refilling, ” Maritime Aquarium Chief Operating Officer Dave Truedson said. “ You ‘re functionally replacing what they ‘re taking, thus although the dramaturgy aspect is unlike going from IMAX to 4D, it ‘s still similar to what we have now. You ‘ll have your concessions to enhance the dramaturgy experience, we ‘ll have an capture down there and ticketing deoxyadenosine monophosphate well, but the have truly is inside that 4D field. ”

According to Tison, the stallion know is besides a lot shorter, as the aquarium ‘s current IMAX movies range between 40 and 45 minutes in duration. “ These 4D offerings are normally between 12 and 15 minutes on the long english, ” Tison said, “ so it ‘s very immersive but it ‘s besides a much more efficient thing to build into your outing for the day and your meter at the aquarium. ” much like the IMAX theater nowadays, the 4D dramaturgy besides has the capability to hold early events such as a speaker series or a large-scale team meet. According to Truedson, the aquarium does not have a firm date on when construction of the field will start, however they are “ looking to get in the reason ” in October.
“ We had sent our visualize out to bid, and it came out higher than expected, ” Truedson said, “ so we went into value engineering mode and looked at redesign and where we could save some dollars, and one of the ideas was to move the dramaturgy toward the east, toward the river, and take it off an existing 54-inch gutter line. As you can imagine, there ‘s quite a sting of cost when you ‘re spanning over the top of a sewer line and trying to build over the top, so we ‘ve achieved quite a spot of savings. ”
The aquarium is presently in the process of redrawing the dramaturgy further toward the east, which Truedson said is approximately a five-month project that began March 1.

“ Since we opened about 31 years ago, a movie feel has been character of the offer we ‘ve given to the residential district and to any of our guests, ” Tison said. “ [ The 4D theater ] is a direction for us to continue that, but it ‘s a way for us to continue that in a slightly reimagined way that takes into score some new technology and some newfangled available features … indeed for us it ‘s very for consistency and confirm that offer with why we ‘re here and what we can provide. ”