With headquarters located on Avenue du Rock ’n’ Roll and a name like Caramba, one would expect a lot of ésprit and energy coming from the Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg-based theatre circuit Caramba sarl. And owner and operator Raymond Massard certainly delivers on that promise. After all, much personal experience and extended family heritage is at cinematic play in the Grand Duchy’s second most populous city.

“Our company name is the combination of my wife Carine’s first name and my own with the first letter of our last name,” Massard explains. The final twist has nothing to do with a trip to Mexico, a love for Spanish cuisine or any allusions to music. “It was somewhat of a monoculture in the exhibition business here in Luxembourg. So ‘Caramba’ was kind of a battle cry to get things changing,” Massard explains.

Monoculture it may be, but the country’s exhibition history is very closely linked to the Massard family. In 1987, Raymond took over their first and for many years only cinema located in the southwestern Luxembourg enclave of Rumelange. The original Kursaal was constructed in 1908 as a ballroom and community gathering place. Three years later, Conrad Massard, great-grandfather of Raymond, converted the space into a movie theatre. Over the ensuing years, Conrad’s son Leon and Leon’s son (and Raymond’s father) Arthur—always with their respective wives—supervised the installation of sound (1929), CinemaScope (1956) and Dolby Stereo (1976). They survived a brief Nazi occupation and artillery shells destroying the building in front of the theatre, which in 1953 received a new bar and lobby.

Today, the Kursaal remains the oldest and longest operating movie theatre in the country, with its Quinette seat count on main floor and balcony reduced to 175, spaced a comfortable 125 cm (50 inches) apart. As with all of the five sites, 11 screens and 2,100 seats that make up Caramba Cinemas, Massard believes not only in the comfort of Quinette chairs and brightness of Harkness screens, but also in the sound of Dolby and DTS processors and the power of QSC and Altec amplifiers. JBL speakers and—other than those mentioned separately in this article—projectors from Bauer B11, Simplex XL and various video beamers from Sony round out the technological ensemble of the circuit.

“I was brought up in the cinema,” Massard recounts, “and experienced first-hand the crisis during the late ’60s and early ’70s when out of 54 cinemas in Luxembourg, at one point in time, there were only three left. My parents insisted that I learn another profession, which I did, and I am still running Plan-Net, an IT company. All the while I stayed interested in the cinema business, though with a wife, small children and a regular full-time job, it became more of a hobby. That was more or less around the same time when Utopia started,” Massard says, referring to the country’s market leader. “All the other small cinemas either closed their doors or were taken over by Utopia.” In 1999, “the issue became whether to stop everything or to get back into the exhibition business and do it professionally.”

Looking at Caramba’s ten-year anniversary and steady growth since then, the choice was obviously to do the latter “and to build up beyond a single-screen cinema in Rumelange.”
Around the same time, “I was asked to install the Kinosch, not to run it,” Massard says, drawing a distinction. “However, when I found out that they were going to use it once a month at most, I said, ‘OK, I’m ready to rent and put a regular program in there.’”

Located in the Kulturfabrik in Esch-sur-Alzette, the 83-seat “salle intimiste” is programmed with an eye towards art and independent fare. “The Kinosch is often integrated into the activities of the Kulturfabrik, a former slaughterhouse converted to a cultural center.” he explains.

In 2000, Massard signed an agreement to take over the lease of the town’s Ariston cinema once the then-tenant vacated the premises “when all the legal issues and options were exhausted” in 2006. CineAriston has been refurbished and, originally opened in 1962 as the largest venue outside the city of Luxembourg, still features 223 seats. The digital (Kinoton DCP70L, Doremi DCP2000) and analog (Cinemeccanica Victoria 9) cinema is part of the Centre Culturel of the same name, which also includes a café and a “superb” room for celebrations and conferences. Situated in the heart of town, “CineAriston is certainly the most beautiful auditoria in Luxembourg,” Caramba’s website states.

Next up was the takeover of Le Paris in Bettembourg, which joined the Caramba group in 2007 with its 175 richly red seats and features Cinemeccanica Victoria 5 film and Sanyo video projection on a 12 by 5 m (39 by 16 feet) screen.

All the while Massard was preparing the launch of his biggest project yet. With the addition of Caramba’s first multiplex—“by far the most modern cinema in the region”—Massard expects to have a country market share of 30% by the end of 2009. Opening on December 19, 2008, the 7-screen, 1,520-seat CineBelval is located in Belvalplaza. The lifestyle center was built on over 100 hectares of land (247 acres) formerly occupied by an early 20th-century steel mill and all its furnaces. “The idea to include a cinema goes back to the start in the late 1990s,” he recalls. “The original plan was to associate with Gaumont, but, in 2000, the company decided to let go of everything outside of France. Also, the site development in terms of infrastructure and construction was not going at the pace you would have expected… Utopia had a plan to develop a cinema there as well. By 2004, that went by the wayside and Caramba stepped in to do something.”

That “something” turned out to be quite something, we might add (including two XpanD 3D systems, Quinette chairs, Harkness screens, and state-of-the-art equipment from Christie, Kinoton, Doremi, USL, QSC and DTS). With an integrated train line and plenty of parking, Massard calls this espace-vie “functional, modern and welcoming at the same time. The two buildings are becoming a point of attraction not only for the people of Luxembourg but also for the surrounding countries.” He included a 550-seat premiere auditorium with an “écran gigantesque” of some 22 m (72 feet) at the base. “This size ‘compares’ to 350 42” flat-screen televisions,” he points out, “and our sound is amplified to 12,000 watts with a dynamic range of 120 dB. In terms of comfort as well, CineBelval features seats with headrests at 130 cm row spacing [51 inches], with 20% of the capacity going to love seats.”



“Avis aux amoureux!” In addition to that note to all the love birds in Luxembourg, Caramba’s website also alerts moviegoers that assigned seats can be purchased online (software provided by Germany’s ticket-international). To assist with the controlling, Caramba is working with Belgium-based Quick Sensor. “The magnificent CineBelval features our seat sensor system Open Today,” explains Pei-Zhi Liou, Quick Sensor’s general manager, sales and marketing. “The new Open Interactive application, which will allow moviegoers to vote via color-coded buttons on trailers and to respond to advertising, trivia and other fun activities, will be in place at the premiere house during the third quarter,” she advises. “Our occupancy management solution is known as an intelligent seat system. Created specifically for the cinema industry, it is not only a great tool for recouping the high costs of day-to-day cinema operations but—in conjunction with all the great services and technology at CineBelval—is also providing a better moviegoing experience for the guests.”

For Massard, “The buttons are exciting to create more interaction with the patrons. When we have a sneak preview, for example, we can find out if people liked the film or not.”
What customers already like is being able to buy tickets and concessions all in one place. “As far as they made sense, we have tried to implement at Belval many of the concepts that worked well in the small cinemas,” Massard notes. “We are about to integrate our own foyer restaurant into the mix where, again, you will be able to buy movie tickets. It works the same way for the ten or so other restaurants and bars situated in the Belval complex. They all sell cinema tickets for us and patrons can leave at the last minute because of our assigned seating.”

Another practical feature developed during the past that is reaching a new level of sophistication these days is automation. “Already in 1987 at the Kursaal,” Massard explains, “the projection was fully automated so that a single person—my mother at the time—could run the place. All you had to do in the booth was to thread the film and the rest was piloted by an Apple II. In fact, we maintained that concept and all our single-screen cinemas are running as one-man shows. Unless there is a rush, of course—then we put in one or two more people for service.”

At CineBelval, too, where everything is digital, “our projection people are more in the lobby and cinemas than in the booth,” Massard continues. “They are using IEEE PC with a secure WiFi network to do nearly everything from wherever they are, including check-up on whether people are seated correctly via the Quick Sensor system.”

About taking the 2K step, Massard says, “we are our own integrator with our expanded IT company. We are also a reseller for Doremi, QSC and so on…so that part was easy. Not only could we do everything ourselves, but it could be taken much further than in other cinemas. We even have a DCP/JPEG2000 encoder/wrapper installed to be able to produce our internal and commercial ads ourselves. All the preshow is shown digitally, either by the Doremi servers at CineBelval or on the Planvision Digital Content Servers in the smaller locations. That is our own PC-based server which not only plays 720p HD digital video content but also automates the 35mm projection.”

Whether the content comes digitally or in analog form, how has the addition of the seven screens affected the programming and performance of the four single auditoria? “Not all reacted in the same way,” Massard replies. “At the Kinosch, for example, there is absolutely no change. Attendance at le Paris is getting even better now, because it is mainly art-house as well and we run publicity and advertising in the multiplex.” Located 7 km (4.5 miles) from CineBelval, “the Kursaal, which used to show mainstream films, has suffered some, and Ariston has suffered a lot. We are thinking about reprogramming and revamping it. Since there is also construction around the cinema, we’re going to keep it quiet before restarting a new campaign for CineAriston until that’s all completed.”

Since Ariston is also digital, “it costs the distributor nothing to give us a supplemental key,” Massard goes on. “That Luxembourg has different language versions also helps in programming more than one cinema with the same title. Traditionally, we are watching films in the original language with French and/or German subtitles. Because many people don’t like to read them and they also watch a lot of German television, for instance, we have shown dubbed versions. Given the proximity of France on the other border, we are also trying to attract people from that country. With DTS before and digital now, this can be done and we are very glad to have supplemental screens.”

Bringing guests to any of those screens is a function of “being close to the patron,” Massard says of his business philosophy. “As our technology allows them, projectionists should not be in the booth but in the cinema. We like to hear what people say and look to find out what they think and want. All our foyers are open with lots of expensive space where [customers] can just relax in the lounge and wait for the next show to start… We like them to feel at home, yet with the social component of being together with other people.”

The latter, Massard confirms, defines the very essence of our business. “The moviegoing experience will be what it has always been,” he says of the future. “Living a movie is about being together with other people, having the ambiance of an audience. It still has all the aspects that it will always have…of room, of space. Moviegoers will always be there as long as there will be movies that are telling a good story.”