The VUE Entertainment cinema at the O2 Millennium Dome, Britain's most prestigious cinema, is using Saturn Communications' Connectvision multimedia messaging to schedule and distribute film times and trailers, concessions and special offers.

Owned by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), and sponsored by mobile operator O2, the O2 Millennium Dome includes a 20,000-seat arena and custom-built digital cinema managed by VUE.  The 11 screen multiplex cinema features a main auditorium seating up to 770 people and the biggest screen in London for blockbuster premières and other celebrity events. 

The design of the O2's cinema for AEG was handled by Glasgow-based architects Unick. It was the size of the cinema that presented Unick's Iain Catternach with significant practical issues. “The challenge was how to use the space effectively such that customers wouldn't feel 'lost' as they moved around the cinema. By using Connectvision with a combination of plasma screens for film information, trailers and concessions, and digital light projectors to turn large wall areas into what are effectively cinema screens for showing film trailers, we've been able to fill the space with  informative and entertaining images,” he said.

Connectvision is being used to generate content, and schedule and distribute information to eight plasma screens in the concession and bar areas and two digital light projectors (DLPs) at the entrance to the first floor escalator and large area between the first floor bar and concessions areas.  The VUE cinema's entrance concessions area also doubles as the cinema's box office and so one of the plasma screens contains details of film times and availability.

The sales and marketing director of VUE Entertainment sees Connectvision as both a multimedia information channel for customers as well as a strategic platform for future developments at the cinema. “Connectvision is widely used within the VUE cinema estate where it is a valued and proven information channel. Here at the O2 Millennium Dome it gives us the possibility of also showing trailers for sporting and O2 concert events we might show using our digital projectors.”