It is incumbent upon us as professionals to provide a lasting, exciting, and memorable centerpiece for a customer’s personal entertainment space whether it’s a private screening or media room. Assembling the proper professional team should be your quest. You have the proper tools to provide a team that can curate a world-class environment and experience every time!
The key element in providing a truly professional-level screening or media room for your residential customer is to include them in developing a compelling and exciting experience beginning with the early design stages with the entire design and execution team.
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It has been my experience in past conversations with some customers who have wanted a “home theater” that they were less than thrilled with the outcome and claim to rarely use their space. Unfortunately, this is likely due to an entire process that was complicated, not seamless, and underwhelming both from a design and final performance quality perspective. We can manage this and make certain that this is not the case.
If you are fortunate enough to have a client who is initially excited and passionate about this significant element of their overall project, you can create and drive that experience with your team that will not only build a stronger understanding from the start but will create a lasting synergy with the client. Encouraging the client and requesting their input on themes and dreams is not a bad thing either!
Providing an educational experience for clients that guides them through the process from design on paper through final commissioning of the space will allow them to make decisions that allow you to manage, and hopefully exceed, their ultimate expectations. More often than not, the overall scope of the project will grow as the client becomes more educated on the options available to them.
It is not uncommon for customers to increase the level (and budget) of design, audio, and video performance if you take the time to guide them down the path of what is available. This can be a truly educational epiphany for many customers who are realizing and building their dream space.
Our elite team leans toward design, technology, and performance that is utilized and expected by the professional content creation and motion picture industry. This includes robust and practical mechanical design and construction of the room based on proper engineering and science parameters.
At the same time, the aesthetic design can be an open palette, including elegant finishes, lighting, color schemes, and seating comfort focusing on optimization of viewing and immersive, high-performance audio soundfields.
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This will not only result in an enjoyable journey for all but also allows clients to understand the steps that are necessary to deliver a final overall exceptional experience tailored to their personal expectations and dreams.
It is important to understand the steps that it takes to create a proper cinema or media space for the home. It is not necessarily dissimilar to a professional studio or post-production environment, but it does add the ability to personalize the design and comfort elements of the room and allow clients to put their fingerprint on the final outcome.
I had the pleasure this past week of having an initial introduction meeting with a prospective client. Our team consisted of the AV integrator, a professional acoustics and engineering design firm, and my cinema interiors design company.
The remote meeting involved introductions and brief presentations by all parties, including engineering considerations, design documentation, and graphic examples of past projects that showed different design elements and styles. This meeting became a “perfect storm” of mutual alignment, as the client was exposed to our process and examples that significantly piqued his interest and passion to move forward. A group email chain was immediately distributed to all parties, and the process of imagining, designing, and budgeting has begun!
It is not a given that all clients will make themselves accessible to this process but, if properly presented by your professional team, it is more likely that this process will be more logical and appreciated by clients and provide them with a higher level of education and understanding.