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With increasing competition from diverse outlets, theaters must increase their efforts to boost their audiences. Regal Cinemas (Knoxville, TN) took such a step with its opening of Regal Premium Experience (RPX™), a surround-sound, high-definition theater setting, for its Times Square location. Cima Network (Ft. Washington, PA), a sign-design and project-management firm, developed the project, which incorporates an original concept from JKR Partners, a Philadelphia-based, architectural firm. Bill Lockett, Cima’s president, said “Regal’s goal was to wow customers. In Times Square, you have to grab attention.”

The most imposing challenge with designing and fabrication that 6 ft. 6 in.-tall letters involved forming them to the theater’s compound-curved walls. To ensure proper placement, Cima and Custom Finishers, which assumed fabrication duties, took wall measurements and built a full-size, template using Sintra® composite material. To ensure a flush mount, Lockett’s team rendered them using Google’s Sketch-Up 3-D software and checked them against a simulated, plywood wall.

Customer Finishers’ channel letters comprise 0.125-in.-thick aluminum painted with Matthews metallic-silver, acrylic-polyurethane coating – except the internally illuminated section of the “X”, which features push-through acrylic with frosted vinyl that’s illuminated by 1.25-in.-wide iColor Flex LMX flexible, RGB LED node strands. Flanking the primary sign, columns features 3/16-in.-thick, clear Lexan® polycarbonate lenses that are illuminated with iColor Flex nodes. The “pill-shaped” sign comprises routed acrylic coated with push-through copy vinyl copy. Strands of iColor Flex also project from above the letters to the overhead soffit.

Cima and Custom Finishers turned around the project in four weeks – in time for the grand opening of the latest blockbuster, Iron Man 2. Soon, the companies will develop similar RPX signage for other Regal locations.