An ages-old tradition just got a little older. To celebrate the museum’s 90-foot domed Omnitheater turning 47, we’re taking a look at all it has accomplished since it showed its first film on Sept. 18, 1978.
Article featuring the opening day of the Omnitheater, with first showing of Genesis (1978)
No place like dome
To catch you up to speed on what makes this screen so special, check out some Omnitheater fast facts.
- When built in 1978 at the museum’s previous location at Wabasha and Exchange streets, the Omnitheater was only the second domed theater in the world.
- The Omnitheater boasts one of the largest seating capacities in the world for a domed theater, able to host 360 visitors in a single showing.
- The eight-story screen is the largest functioning rotating dome in the world and weighs 60 tons.
- The dome is counterbalanced by 30-foot, 11-ton weighted arms on either side. It is so perfectly steady that it can be driven by a single 5 horsepower electric motor.
- The dome can be rotated to reveal the largest flat screen in Minnesota, measuring 86 feet wide and 64 feet tall.
The QTRU and IMAX projector inside the projection room
The Omnitheater on film
Until 2019, the Omnitheater operated an IMAX dome film projector. Here are a few numbers the Omnitheater sported on its film stat sheet before transitioning to a digital dome cinema.
- It used 70mm film stock — the largest in the world — which is four times larger than the standard 35mm and 1000 times larger than HDTV.
- The projector operated at a 24 frames per second (or fps). One second of film was 5.8 feet long.
- A 40-minute IMAX movie on 70mm film translated to three miles of film and weighed 300 pounds.
- Omnitheater staff used a specialized forklift to pick up film platters to load them into the rig that fed film into the one-ton projector.
Image of the Stellar Tours Digistar technology
A move into the digital age
Our theater served as the beta site for IMAX’s next generation of digital dome cinemas. The process began in 2016 and helped change the way IMAX made and served their dome theaters moving forward.
- The Omnitheater upgraded to digital technology in October 2019, transitioning to an IMAX GT laser projector, the latest in laser technology.
- The new system still operates at 24 frames per second, and the difference between film and digital is practically unnoticeable to the naked eye.
- In 2021, the Omnitheater became the alpha site for a bold new experiment — attaching a Digistar 7 projection system to our existing IMAX projector. This new feature allowed access to an astronomy atlas and a STEM library, creating the opportunity for the museum to create digital content.
- Stellar Tours, the first original content using Digistar technology, made its debut in the Omnitheater in 2022. A choose-your-own space adventure, it offers viewers a rare glimpse into the furthest reaches of the universe.
Cheers to all the stories that Omnitheater has told, and here’s to many more!
