Crown Neonopolis 14 Theatre
Las Vegas, NV USA
Exterior of the Neonopolis complex during finishing construction. The complex is located at the end of Freemont St. in the old section of Las Vegas and includes several shops and restaurants. The décor has many electric neon fixtures, hence the name.
The Crown Neonopolis 14 Theatre is located within the complex on the third floor. The center of the complex has an open courtyard. A circular elevator brings patrons up from ground level to the theatre level. During construction, several building materials (like carpeting) are left outside since it rarely rains.
Actual entrance to the theatre during construction.
Everything cleaned up for opening night, May 3, 2002.
View of the entrance on the inside and candy stand from the upper level walkway.
The "Attitude Girls" provide additional color on opening night. This is, after all, Las Vegas. Not seen is 225lb "Attitude Guy" who discreetly shadows the girls to insure they get respect.
View of the box office / concierge stand. The glass overlooks the courtyard below.
Consoles and projectors lined up and ready for shipping after assembly at Neumade/Xetron's manufacturing facility in Newtown, Connecticut USA.
Consoles and projectors are shipped completely assembled, wired and tested. This saves much time and money during install, but requires more careful shipping and moving. After this install we decided to not put audio equipment in with the console, but rather always use a separate rack which is also shipped completely assembled. Although the audio equipment fits in the console, there's no room for future expansion and it's difficult to work on the equipment when troubleshooting.
Our equipment dealer Steve keeps a watchful eye on all projectors until they are placed right in front of the port windows. Technically they belong to him until then, and he's not going to let anything happen.
The elevator to the projection room level wasn't working when the equipment arrived, so the projectors had to live in the lobby for a while. There were a lot of strangely shaped wall sections in the lobby, requiring sheetrock to be cut and curved at different angles.
One of the several dreary stairs to the projectors. There are 14 screens with 5 different projection rooms, all at different levels. Who needs a Stairmaster for exercise? THEATRE ARCITECTURAL RULE No. 132-16: Projectors on different levels is bad, but if you must, use ramps instead of stairs.
The projectors have reached their final destination. For some reason, the architect decided to make the entire front wall as wide as the building columns. So, the wall is over 2 ft thick. Prefabricated port window frames will not fit, and the light from the projector hits the inside edges. The projector console had to be perfectly positioned in the exact center to get as much image out as possible. We actually had to make some screens smaller because of this! THEATRE ARCITECTURAL RULE No. 142-76: Jeez! Don't do that again.
Two auditoriums (#4 and #9) are currently undergoing THX approval.
Download the video tour from the Video Warehouse.