Ballantyne Strong, Inc. (NYSE Amex: BTN), a provider of digital cinema projection equipment and services, cinema screens and other cinema products, today announced that Marcus Theatres®, a division of The Marcus Corporation (NYSE: MCS), has selected Ballantyne to assist in orchestrating its large digital cinema deployment.
Pursuant to the agreement, Ballantyne is supplying Marcus with 570 digital projection systems featuring NEC Display Solutions projectors. Ballantyne’s Strong Technical Services group expects to complete all installations during the second half of 2011 and will subsequently provide Marcus full after-sale maintenance services for their entire circuit coupled with 24/7 monitoring from its state-of-the-art NOC (Network Operations Center).
President of Marcus Theatres, Bruce J. Olson stated, “Marcus Theatres is very pleased to further extend our long-time relationship with Ballantyne Strong as we rely on them to handle many of the key aspects of our digital cinema deployment. In addition to outfitting all of our first-run auditoriums with NEC projectors, they are also installing the systems and providing us with after-care maintenance and NOC monitoring services.”
In recent quarters, Ballantyne also supplied Marcus Theatres with 3-D compatible cinema screens for their digital auditoriums equipped with RealD technology, as well as 64 additional NEC projectors that have already been installed.
“We are delighted to secure this multi-faceted agreement with Marcus Theatres, a valued Ballantyne customer and partner for the past 40-plus years,” stated Ballantyne Strong President and CEO Gary L. Cavey. “This significant new contract further builds upon the momentum we recently established in winning the agreement to also digitize four other leading Minnesota-based theatrical circuits. In addition to our master reseller role for cutting-edge NEC systems, we are again demonstrating the important value-add we bring through the Company’s talented Cinema Services team, which is handling all installations, maintenance, as well as proactive and preventive care from Ballantyne’s NOC based at our Omaha headquarters.”
