The second edition of Cinema Build KSA Forum
kicked off today in Fairmont Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The event is organised by
Eyes of Cities in association with The Great Minds Group and supported by the
Quality of Life Program, as one of the Saudi Vision 2030
realization programs. Building and developing the cinema sector in Saudi
will for sure enhance the quality of life of individuals and families.
The agenda of the forum was designed to shed
light on the most important topics related to building cinematic projects in
the Kingdom while keeping pace with international standards of cinema. The
event's opening panel discussion focused about laying the right foundation for
sustainable growth to achieve the Vision 2030 cinema
goals. Exploring the groundwork needed to achieve both short-term and long-term
goals as well as the lessons learned from the first few completed cinema
projects in KSA, presenting takeaways plans for both the cinema exhibitors and
regulators.
Commenting
on the event the spokesperson for the Quality of Life Program, Mazroa
Al-Mazroo, affirmed that the cinema sector is one of the most promising areas
in the Kingdom, whether in terms of the size of the entire industry, or its
economic, cultural and social impact.
Al
Mazroo added: "Since the inauguration of the cinema sector, one of the
initiatives of the Quality of Life Program which is one of the Saudi Vision
2030 realization programs in collaboration with the General Authority of
Audio-visual Media. Nine licenses were issued to operate cinemas and 14 cinemas
were opened in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, Khobar, and Jizan. This has created hundreds of job
opportunities and allowed millions of citizens
and residents to enjoy watching premieres of their favourite movies at the same time as the rest of the
world. "
"The
launch of the cinema sector is a remarkable success story in our program. The
Kingdom achieved first place in ticket sales in the Middle East last January,
where movies from 22 countries were shown and rated in Kingdom, in addition to
that 12 of these movies were shown in the Kingdom before the United States of
America. Moreover, 2020 goals were achieved in terms of the number of visits,
as we exceeded 3.8 million targeted visits to cinemas in 2019. New cinemas are
set to open in Jubail, Taif, Al-Ahsa, Dhahran, Hail and other cities in the
Kingdom this year. "
The forum’s sessions
and discussions cover all topics related to building futuristic cinemas over
two days, starting from architectural and technical considerations for
designing state-of-the-art cinemas, moving to the importance of acoustics and
the latest innovations used on global level. In addition to that, industry
leaders and experts will exchange opinions and provide solutions for overcoming
the challenges in delivering projects for numerous developers in short period
well as executing projects on time while meeting required specifications and
international standards.
With more than 300
attendees along with 25 international speakers as well as over 30 sponsor and
exhibitor, Day one of the forum was a great success and concluded with a
closing speech by the conference chairman Paul Schwarz, Technical Director,
Acoustic Research Laboratory.
