Soft Play, a global leader in innovative and safe children’s playground equipment, is assisting customers in repurposing vacant IMAX theatres to improve education and offer highly interactive, easily monetisable experiences.
Some IMAX settings, such as science centres and museums, have been trying to find ways to make their spaces more “sticky.” IMAX theatres associated with some of these locations may at times be lacking in film variety or the location may just be seeking other alternatives.
The successful space exploration project Planet Play at Kennedy Space Center in Orlando, Florida, marked Soft Play’s initial entry into this market sector. Due to this project’s success, other clients with comparable needs and regions have become interested.
Creating engaging & educational experiences
Usually, these kinds of projects have three goals: construct an eye-catching, one-of-a-kind, and distinctive experience; include an educational element that piques a child’s interest in learning more; and guarantee that the attraction has enough capacity and throughput to provide a profit for the operator and/or the location. It’s also important to make a strong connection between the attraction and the nearby science centre or museum to entice families to visit and spend more time seeing its displays.
Encouraging children to pursue STEM-related careers in the future requires making learning enjoyable. Since the IMAX platform has been around for a while, the giant screen format’s novelty value may have started to fade. In close collaboration with its clients, Soft Play offers a conscious approach that promotes education through physical exercise and learning. In the future, Soft Play could also incorporate digital play into these physical environments in order to increase consumer interaction.
Soft Play, which currently has a major IMAX refurbishment project in the works, says:
“Thoughtful integration of physical play that contains an educational component is not a new idea. What is new is the scaling of such an idea to create an engaging and unique customer experience that can be successfully monetized over many years. Soft Play seeks out such challenges to better serve our expanding customer base.”
Last year, Soft Play installed a unique 270 square metre play area environment at Lotte World Adventure Busan Theme Park in South Korea. This features a Jack and the Beanstalk theme, with a two-story climbing castle from which Lotte World mascots Lotty and Lorry both make an appearance. The firm has also worked with major names in the industry, including Disney, Merlin Entertainments, SeaWorld, Six Flags and Ripley Entertainment.
