IMAX bet on VR arcades — seven centres, two years, total exit

In 2016 IMAX, the big-screen exhibitor, decided the next screen was a headset. It set up a $50 million VR content fund with CAA, China Media Capital and the Raine Group, ended up planning around twelve VR experience centres, and opened the first in Los Angeles in January 2017. Seven centres followed worldwide — including two in New York, Shanghai, Manchester and Bangkok — located in or near cinema multiplexes, the idea being that moviegoers would pay extra for a premium VR session.

The pilot never found its economics. Four of the seven centres — including Shanghai, Manchester and both New York locations — were quietly closed during 2018. Consumer reaction had been positive, IMAX's chief executive said, but 'the numbers just weren't there.'

In December 2018 IMAX announced it was concluding the pilot entirely: the last three centres — Los Angeles, Bangkok and Toronto — closed by the end of the first quarter of 2019, the company said it would write off certain VR content investments, and its joint cinematic VR camera project with Google ended with it. One of the first global exhibitors into location-based VR was fully out of the business two years after its first centre opened.