Cinergy Cinemas: A One-Stop Shop for Entertainment!

The Texas-based entertainment chain crowned ‘Top Family Entertainment Center’ of the World by IAAPA, operates over eight luxury cinema and entertainment centres with 75 screens. By launching its newest location, the brand has furthered its mission to be the leader in one-stop entertainment experiences for guests of all ages across the country. TheatreWorld brings to you an exclusive understanding of the brand's vision and goals with Cinergy’s Jeffrey and Jamie Benson…

Cinergy Cinemas is privately owned and operated by Jeffrey Benson, Founder and CEO, Cinergy Entertainment and Jamie Benson, Executive Vice President, Cinergy Entertainment. Jeffrey Benson known for pioneering the 'cinema entertainment centre' concept within the cinema exhibition industry, started out with two traditional cinemas in 1999. The duo then founded the Movie Tavern chain of dine-in theatres in 2001. As they recapitalised the company, Movie Tavern soon became one of the largest and fastest growing operators of dine-in theatres in the United States. With the sale of Movie Tavern in 2008, Cinergy was started only a year later and now operates over eight locations across the United States.

Cinergy Wheeling

Stretching over a whopping 40000 square feet, Cinergy's ninth and newest location is fitted with seven state-of-the-art auditoriums. The dine-in theatre boasts 624 luxury recliners that are equipped with swivel tables for ultimate comfort during movie-watching. The patrons can enjoy a great meal or indulge in the delicious theatre concessions.

Cinergy Wheeling has only recently opened its doors to the community as it offers them custom experiences along with its recline-and-dine luxury moviegoing experience. Cinergy Wheeling screens blockbuster movies as well as independent films. Cinergy Wheeling boasts a beautiful full-service bar that is equipped with pool tables and a shuffle board. The spacious sports bar has become a crowd favourite for watching sports or relaxing with a drink after work.

The guests are greeted by the wait staff while they order online from the extensive selection of alcoholic beverages and chef-inspired American dishes. The venue has pledged to host monthly sensory friendly screenings of family friendly movies for guests with sensory sensitivities. It will allow the guests to move about freely while ensuring the lights in the auditorium are bright enough for them to navigate as well as the volume decibels are maintained at the minimum. Cinergy Wheeling is also host to family events including French toast breakfasts, a ticket to children's movies, and meet-and-greets with movie characters.

Cinergy Wheeling comes as a relief to the community as they were very much in need of a luxury moviegoing destination. With the theatre offering the facility for in-theatre dining, the theatre opening has been well received and appreciated by the audiences. Cinergy's Wheeling location fills the need of providing state-of-the-art entertainment experience to people of all ages. It allows them to partake in watching a great film as well as a quality dining experience, especially when both the activities happen without leaving one's seat. Cinergy's guests enjoy the perk of ordering service right from their chair.

Cinergy Wheeling offers a full menu that boasts American favourties that are prepared by experienced chefs including a selection of the best appetisers, pizza, burgers, salads and more. Food items are not pre-prepared; instead, they are cooked to order and served to the seats. The sports bar offers a selection of nonalcoholic beverages as well as beers, wines and signature cocktails such as Texas Tea, Electric Lemonade, Island Punch and the Effen Chilton.

Cinergy Amarillo

Cinergy Amarillo is Cinergy Entertainment Group's flagship property as it has been named the top family entertainment centre in the world at the annual International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions convention. Cinergy Amarillo offers something for quite literally everyone with its ten-auditorium luxury dine-in theatre. It has more attractions and offerings than any other competitor in the area; hence, it acts as a one-stop destination for entertainment for people of all ages, families, couples on date-night, birthday parties and more.

The luxury dine-in theatre is equipped with laser projection, Dolby Atmos sound and an EPIC auditorium that seats 1260 patrons in luxury dine-and-recline seats. It boasts a full-service kitchen and two bars perfect for watching sports along with a patio with bar access, seating, games and TVs.

While Cinergy Amarillo is known for its upscale cinema amenities like other Cinergy properties, it also features a unique variety of interactive games and other entertainment amenities including a bowling alley. It boasts one of the largest floors of arcade games and invites its guests to test their skills. Along with an arcade, Cinergy Amarillo is equipped with four escape rooms, eighteen upscale bowling lanes and a Skywalker Zip Line Course among others. The property, quite literally has something for everyone.

TheatreWorld would love to know the thought process behind conceptualising the 'Cinema Entertainment Concept.' Could you elaborate a little on this and its inspiration?

It all started when we developed our first location in Copperas Cove, TX in 2009. We actually purchased an existing 40,000 square feet building that was a little too large for just a cinema, so we decided we could fill that extra space with complimentary amusements. We chose laser tag and about 50 arcade games. We did not realise initially what a great combination we had stumbled upon. We had met the founder of Main Event Entertainment, Neil Hupfauer in 2006, and we began talking to him a lot after we opened this first location. And with his advice, we kept enlarging the amusement offerings in every location we subsequently built.

By the time we built our Odessa location in 2016, it was 90,000 square feet (now enlarged to 106,000 square feet) and featured 18 lanes of bowling, a massive arcade, laser tag, event rooms, a ropes course, and 10 screens including our first PLF screen that we call EPIC, which stands for ‘Experience Perfection in Cinema.’ So, really, it was a little bit of luck on the first one. We combined a lot of Neil's knowledge and experience from Main Event with our background in food and movies from our days founding and running Movie Tavern, and we turned it into what it is today over a period of few years making each location larger with more entertainment options.

How has incorporating alternative entertainment amenities affected the raw cinemagoing experiences amongst the patrons at Cinergy? Do these alternatives act as distractions, or does it complement the cinematic experience?

We fully believe that the alternative entertainment amenities complement moviegoing. This is not to say that every time a guest comes for a movie they experience all Cinergy has to offer at one of our larger complexes, but they do learn what we have, they see the fun going on in the game room and they remember it. Unfortunately, we don't have tent pole movies that open every week, so on those off weekends, many of our guests will come for the other forms of entertainment we offer. Our theatres are all excellent in their own right. All 82 of our screens have full luxury recliner seating. Many of our locations feature laser projection. Each of our purpose-built locations features a PLF screen with Dolby Atmos. So, we offer high quality cinema experiences in addition to high fidelity amusement experiences.

The cinema exhibition industry globally is still undergoing a recovery period; amidst this how has Cinergy managed to maintain its standing as the 'One-Stop Shop for Entertainment'?

Since emerging from the global pandemic, it's clear that everyone is looking for out-of-home entertainment, and even though the movie recovery has been uneven, the family entertainment centre portion of our business has performed very, very well. 5 of our locations are true one-stop entertainment destinations, offering a mix of attractions. We have axe throwing, bowling, giant arcades, the latest virtual reality games, laser tag, ropes courses with zip lines, incredible escape rooms, full bars, and full restaurant menus. This giant mix of different attractions is a large draw unto itself and it does not need a robust movie line up to thrive.

Because of the amusement offerings at these 5 locations, we find that our customer base will frequent Cinergy even when there is not a large Hollywood release on any given weekend. We wish all of our locations were one-stop entertainment destinations, but truly only 5 of our 9 locations are. We have 2 that are dine-in luxury cinema locations and we have 2 that are traditional cinemas that feature luxury recliners.

We would love to hear your thoughts on Cinergy, especiallyon the expectations for the Wheeling and Amarillo properties. How are these projects different or similar to other Cinergy projects/properties.

The Wheeling and Amarillo properties are actually quite different. To start with, Amarillo was purpose-designed and built by us, is 90,000 square feet, features 16 lanes of bowling, a giant arcade, virtual reality, escape rooms, laser tag, and a ropes course, in addition to 10 luxury recliner theatres.

Wheeling was a dine-in theatre property that we bought this past July. Wheeling is an incredibly beautiful 39,000 square feet, 7 screen, luxury recliner dine-in theatre with a large bar, but it doesn't feature any of the other amusements that Amarillo has. Our long-term intention in Wheeling is to convert the extra-large bar area into an arcade, adding an extra element of entertainment for our guests to enjoy, but we just physically don't have the space to add other amusements without removing auditoriums. Amarillo has performed incredibly post-pandemic. Its sales are about 30 per cent greater than before 2020. Wheeling just opened in July, so it is brand new and is just getting started. But we expect it to perform very strongly, and for it to become the community's preferred destination for first-class entertainment.

Cinergy really has 3 slightly different concepts that we operate: Cinergy Entertainment, Cinergy Dine-In Cinemas, and Cinergy Cinemas. Our Amarillo, Odessa, Midland, Copperas Cove, TX and Tulsa, OK locations are all full, one-stop entertainment destinations, which feature a mix of attractions. Our Wheeling, IL and Charlotte, NC locations are dine-in theatres that feature recline-and-dine seating and a full menu of chef-inspired American favourites, served in-theatre, along with a full bar. Our Granbury and Marble Falls locations (both in Texas) are simply luxury recliner cinemas with traditional concession stands and alcoholic beverages. Movies are the common thread to all 3 of our concepts and we believe that all 3 concepts have merit in their given markets.