Forget the robotic realism of Disney's Animatronics or the vertigo-inducing magic of IMAX. SimEx is taking moviegoers for a real ride. Using modified flight simulators and 70mm point-of-view films, the 10-year-old Toronto-based company has given more than 10 million people flights to outer space and roller coaster rides through the Grand Canyon, the North Pole, Hawaii, and the bottom of the ocean - all this at five dollars for five minutes.
Since the 1985 launch of Tour of the Universe (the world's first, permanent, large-scale simulator ride) at Toronto's CN Tower, SimEx has jettisoned large-scale simulators into the world of tourist kitsch. The company now has 35 employees, revenues of C$11 million (US$7.7 million) and 16 simulator rides operating in Toronto, Japan, and Paris. "The crucial thing," says president Michael Needham, "is that the theater and the seats are in motion."
SimEx uses heavy-duty motion platforms to ensure passengers get a hefty dose of pitch, roll, heave, and surge on each adventure. The technology behind rocking the 30- to 100-seat theaters hasn't changed much since they first started making rides: the real improvement is in the quality of the point-of-view films that give even the most fantastic scenarios a sense of intense reality. The computer graphic effects-laden 70mm films run at 30 frames per second and cost C$500,000 a minute to produce.
SimEx's most recent innovation is the undersea adventure SeaTrek, on Rokko Island in Kobe, Japan, and at Ontario Place, on Toronto's waterfront. Patrons venture through a cavern where they can gawk at the belongings of the fictional Ocean Rangers, a sort of do-gooder submersible Interpol, which includes a hockey-loving Canadian, a boomerang-flinging Aussie, and a New Age explorer who hoards books. Seems the Ocean Rangers are in heady pursuit of the abhorrent undersea terrorist Admiral Kraken, wanted for toxic dumping and vandalism. ("We had mammal molestation," cracks designer Matthew Dawson, "but we took it off. It's not PC, and we decided that wasn't right. It is a kid's show.")
Once inside the theater, the 30 seats are rocked away while the onscreen image whips around underwater, ultimately crashing into the docking bay. The experience is kind of like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea meets James Bond inside an oversize blender.
Remarkably, only about one in every 100,000 patrons gets queasy, according to SimEx director of operations, Brian Peebles. And while the rides seem designed to thrill kids, SeaTrek became a magnet for the Japanese Office Ladies in Kobe, where, before the earthquake, young, single, working women with disposable incomes were the main patrons of the ride.
In competition with about four other players in the international market for the two or so venues that spring up each year, SimEx is hard at work developing ways to improve its space shuttle launches, roller-coaster rides, and undersea scrambles with smells and breezes. "The industry is at the on-ramp of improvement," says Needham. "Every time we do a new attraction, it's significantly better than the previous one. We're at the early stages of getting this right."
SimEx: +1 (416) 597 1585
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