A theatre for all seasons - The acoustic design of the Qingdao Movie Metropolis Grand Theatre

The Qingdao Movie Metropolis Grand Theatre is the largest movie theatre in Asia, and probably the only theatre in the world which is installed with both a Dolby ATMOS system and an electronic room enhancement system.

It can accommodate 1970 seats and has a volume of 19990m3. The overall room acoustic design objective was to provide, primarily, a suitable environment for movie projection, but also one for award ceremonies and live orchestra performances. The acoustics had to be top quality for all these three uses. However, each use had very different acoustic requirements. After the theatre was completed in 2017, over 20 acousticians, sound engineers and musicians were invited for a subjective evaluation. Generally, the evaluators regarded the sound quality produced by all the sound systems were excellent. The hall provided good room acoustic environment for all the sound systems.

I had good fortune to work on this project as a main member of the acoustic design team, and joined the project owner's technical team shortly after this project was completed. My special experience enables me to reflect on the formation of this project from both the designer's and the project owner's perspectives.

The paper below was presented in Reproduced Sound 2020 conference. It describes the solutions for the main issues encountered during the room acoustic design processes, with an emphasis on how key design decisions were made.

RS2020 SSU The acoustic design of the Qi.

Download • 1.55MB

The issues were: how to achieve variable acoustics best for all uses; what the appropriate natural reverberation time should be; how the interior was best designed to realise the required natural reverberation time.

Odeon simulation results, commissioning testing results, and a subject evaluation by over 20 sound related professionals are also provided.

A project with Wanda Group and Marshall Day Acoustics (The writing was permitted by Sunac who owns the intellectual properties related to this project)