Exit Lighting in Regal Theaters

[Geoff Jones]

In 2015, after seeing The Hateful Eight (70MM) in auditorium 9 at The Continental Theater in Denver, I complained to Regal, requesting that they address the issue of the exit light shining on the screen.

Yesterday, after seeing Dune in auditorium 5, I went for a peek to see if they had fixed it.

Unfortunately, I misremembered the auditorium number and peeked into auditoriums 8 and 10 instead.

Auditorium 10 wasn't showing anything, but green light from the exit was shining on the screen.

This picture from auditorium 8 speaks for itself.

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[Mike Croaro]

This does not surprise me at all. They has this same problem at their Vogue Theatre in San Francisco, although at my request they did address, and solve the issue.

[Sam Chavez]

Vogue is not a Regal location last I looked.

[Frank Cox]

That was an easy fix for me.

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I wrapped a little piece of plywood with a scrap of screen masking material and screwed it to the wall next to the exit light. I experimented a bit with some cardboard first to figure out the size to cut the plywood to.

Now there's no light on the screen from that exit sign.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I can understand that moving your exit door away from that location may be architecturally impossible, but dimming the exit lights during the show is often allowed if you apply for a special exception. You usually need to install some extra precautions and make sure they DO light when there is an actual emergency, but it requires some work. If the local authorities don't grant you any exception, then building a partial light box like Frank did really is no rocket science...

It seems like those theaters aren't even trying the bare minimum to avoid situations like this. Maybe the photo is over-exposing the problem a bit, but I would've walked out if it was as horrible as on the picture...

[Jarod Reddig]

Boy that’s one of the worst ones I’ve seen. Lazy Regal.

[Bobby Henderson]

Yeah, the light contamination on screen in the image within the first post is pretty horrible. There is no excuse for the theater to let that situation persist since fixes are pretty easy to install. The sign just needs a partial hood to block the light from spilling on screen. The exit sign would still be visible to the audience.

[Mike Croaro]

Vogue is not a Regal location last I looked.

This was a former UA house.

[Sam Chavez]

The Vogue was a UA then Regal house but it has been quite a long time since that was the case. Amazing that they would still have the same lighting problem. I did a research preview there of Rob Reiner's "Spinal Tap. He was in attendance and quite nervous! I believe it was Avco Embassy who released this film. It has changed hands twice since then, once very recently as you likely know.

[Mike Croaro]

The Vogue was a UA then Regal house but it has been quite a long time since that was the case. Amazing that they would still have the same lighting problem...........

They HAD a lighting problem. This was about 10-14 years ago. Once I mentioned it to Regal/UA, they corrected the problem about a month or so later.

[Jesse Skeen]

Wow- that's proof that nobody who works there actually watches the movies. Also a scope picture letterboxed and with no masking. You'd think the people responsible for that would've been weeded out during the pandemic closure, and they'd have had time to fix things like that.

[Lyle Romer]

Besides Frank's high tech fix, can't the sign be angled slightly towards the audience to prevent light from being thrown towards the screen?

Also, I don't see why exit signs can't dim in relation to the house lights like Marcel suggests and be tied to the fire alarm and emergency lights to come up to full brightness when either is activated.

I know at Disney World, the exit signs in the rides are barely visible during normal operations even thought they are all over the place.

[Randy Stankey]

Nothing a cheap can of black spray paint won't fix!

[Stefan Scholz]

This is a worldwide problem. Planners for exit lights use the type they specify in their daylight bright shopping venues. As if nothing else is available.
I do not know about codes that require super bright light to be hung.
A visibility must be ensured, in the lighting conditions of the room. So, when the movie runs, house light down, you don't need much. 10 candles or so, not 950. Even with house lights up, you're not even in the range of a shopping space, which needs bright light for good color rendition. Probably your house lights give an illumination, that's actually dimmer, than the screen brightness.
Even if people order dimmable lights, I found they bring PWM modulated LED signs, driven at a low frequency, so they harshly flicker in peripherial vision, which is very annoying. Again, planning failed, well thought of, but wrong type. Another engineers used a higher drive frequency, where the lights emitted an audible high pitched humming noise, very detractive to many patrons. Another fail.
Even though the first failure is an exit door next to a screen, or within the viewing angle of patrons. A clear fail of the theatre architect, and I do not follow "There was no other way" (Well, yours was the one with lowest co$t involved)

[Frank Cox]

A clear fail of the theatre architect

While I'm not a theatre architect, I did design my theatre and I can assure you that there really was no other place for that exit door other than right where it is now.

In fact, I had to buy (actually the city gave me) the vacant lot next door just for the purpose of having somewhere for that exit door to open to.