NY (Top40 Charts) - A company intending to show live broadcasts of concerts and other events on movie screens is launching its service with an Aug. 15 Sugar Ray concert. The performance will take place live at the Tabernacle in Atlanta and will be shown simultaneously on 44 movie screens in 21 states. The private company, Cinema Presents, is backed by a host of investors, including entertainer Pat Boone. It has been rigging theaters nationwide with digital projectors and other necessary equipment for satellite distribution of live events. It calls its service In-Cinema Network. Cinema Presents claims the Sugar Ray concert to be the largest-ever live entertainment broadcast and hopes it will be the first of many such events. By the middle of next year, the company will be available on 250 screens nationwide, showing live concerts, sporting events, and other forms entertainment.
"We'll show them on one screen per complex, Sunday through Wednesday nights, basically the nights when exhibitors need to put butts in the seats," Cinema Presents spokeswoman Marcia Beverly said. Online movie-ticketer Fandango is selling tickets to the Sugar Ray theater-showings at $15 each, plus its usual 75 cents to $1 service fee. "We hope this is the beginning of a long-term relationship," Fandango spokesman John Singh said. "It's a great way to see a concert that's geographically unfeasible to attend any other way."
Theatergoers will see the concert at a six-second delay on the big screen. The show includes exclusive behind-the-scenes artist interviews and bonus event coverage. Cinema Presents is running promotional trailers at select theaters to promote the event, and a radio promotion is also under way. Sugar Ray is touring in support of its recent self-titled Lava/Atlantic album, which is No. 41 on The Billboard 200 in its seventh week. First single "When's It's Over" is No. 16 on The Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 on Billboard's Adult Top 40 Tracks chart. The tour, with labelmate Uncle Kracker in tow, hits Baltimore tomorrow (Aug. 9).
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