Immotion Group to install 40-seat VR Theatre at Milwaukee County Zoo
[source: Immotion]
(IMMO ) announced that it has signed a revenue share agreement with the Wisconsin-based Milwaukee County Zoo - a zoo that boasts an annual footfall of 1.3 million visitors, with peak summer days seeing over 10,000 visitors - to install a 40-seat VR Theatre.
Immotion, which combines technology with educational content to deliver immersive virtual reality solutions, will utilise a 500 square metre stand-alone building in the heart of the zoo.
Work for the theatre is expected to commence immediately with a target opening date of the second half of July 2022; the contract will continue until 31 December 2026, it detailed.
The theatre,including a pre-show, will feature the company’s latest live-action experience, “Gorilla Trek,” which was created in association with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.
As part of the experience, visitors will be virtually transported to the mountains of Rwanda where they immerse themselves in the habitat and lives of the endangered mountain gorilla.
Immotion’s design team has designed the centre to feature an extensive pre-show where guests interact with touch-screen displays and infographics, ‘giving them a valuable understanding of the plight of the mountain gorilla and a chance to learn more about the individual gorillas featured in the film, in addition to those in the zoo itself,’ it explained.
The installations at Milwaukee County Zoo, Pittsburgh Zoo and the additional seats to be installed at Sea Life London - deals that were announced in April 2022 - will take the number of new headsets installed in FY22 to 108 when completed, and the overall estate to 468.
Immotion added that trading continues to be in line with expectations, with unaudited revenue of circa £0.870m for the core Location Based Entertainment (“LBE”) business in April 2022.
Due to its recent trading performance, this brings the company’s total unaudited LBE revenue to £2.7m in the four months to 30 April 2022, compared to £2.3m in the first 6 months of 2021.
Commenting on what he refers to as a “major signing”, Martin Higginson, CEO, Immotion Group said: “The focus on both aquariums and zoos is starting to pay dividends, and I believe that once other zoos see this latest installation our order book will get even busier. Based on discussions and pipeline, we continue to be very excited at our prospects for further growth.”
“The Milwaukee County Zoo project will be a flagship installation as we move forward with our 2022 zoo initiative,” said Rod Findley, current President, LBE & Group Commercial Director.
Speaking of the experience, he outlined: “From the moment the guest steps into the building, they are transported to the mountains of Rwanda; the pre-show engages them and sets the stage for an unforgettable VR journey into the heart of a mountain gorilla family. We could not be more proud to be working with our partners at Milwaukee County Zoo who have a clear and forward-thinking vision of how to integrate new technologies into their zoo offering.”
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Following a period of consolidation, Immotion recently unveiled plans to spin out its two businesses, HBE and Uvisan, to allow external finance to be raised as required and “most importantly” - in the Board’s view- to stop any further cash investment from the company.
The idea is that once spun out, Immotion will be fully focussed on LBE, which the Board believes is “highly cash generative and scalable” with “massive further potential.” Immotion said preliminary discussions relating to a spin out are already occurring for both divisions.
“It is our intention that future funding of both will, once a deal is complete, no longer be the responsibility of Immotion, thus allowing us to focus its cash resources on LBE,’ it explained.
Based on its current pipeline, the size of the addressable market and its established position, the Board of Directors said they believe Immotion has a very considerable growth opportunity.
Having developed a new ‘plug and play’ solution for zoos – a 16-seater containerised solution – Immotion is looking to trial several of these in 2022 with a view to scaling the model in 2023.
The Company believes that the combination of large purpose-built theatre solutions, including pre-show experiences, along with a modular solution will allow it to grow rapidly and profitably.
“We have a clear plan of where we want to take the business and it has now reached a stage in its development where we believe it can be scaled without a commensurate increase in operating costs. The LBE business is already profitable, and we expect a combination of a full year of normal trading conditions for our brought forward portfolio as well as new capacity and new sites coming on stream to drive strong growth in revenue and profitability in 2022,” the company explained.
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