Samhoud Media has signed a deal to distribute films to one hundred virtual reality cinemas in the outlets of Chinese media giant, Gome Group according to Dutch financial news outlet Het Financieele Dagblad.
The collaboration began after a visitor to the Dutch company’s The VR Cinema in Amsterdam, Bin Gu, facilitated a meeting between the two companies in Boston, United States. Samhoud Media’s The VR-Cinema brand name will be used in Gome Group outlets, with the Dutch company delivering the concept, technical support as well as the distribution of the films. In return, they will receive a percentage of ticket sales.
Gome Group and Samhoud Media will work together to create the film programme that will be shown in Gome Group’s cinemas in China. The cinemas have a capacity of 50 people with an expectation of about 150-200 visitors daily. The VR films include short films and documentaries and unfold around the viewer, who sits on a rotating chair, in 360 degrees using a VR headset. Typically, several films about 10 minutes long are played during a 30-minute showing.
Established by Dutch founder Jip Samhoud, Samhoud Media specialises in virtual reality. It owns The VR Cinema in Amsterdam, which opened its doors in March of this year. This was the first permanent virtual reality cinema in the world at the time. To date, it has received 60,000 visitors.
The first five branches will open on 28 December 2016, in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhan, Tianijn and Shenyang. Visitors to the new VR films at the Gome Group outlets will pay approximately €9 euros for a ticket.
Currently, US Bank JP Morgan estimates that the Virtual Reality Market is worth $2.45 billion, but predicts that by 2020, it will have increased to $13.5 billion. Taking this into consideration, Samhoud Media is already in talks to bring VR to cinemas in Russia as well as India in the near future.
