Seat Shields to Make Audience ‘Comfortable’

 LAProPoint, a Sun Valley manufacturer of theme park and theatrical systems, will offer its latest product soon – a seat divider for the COVID-19 age.

Jim Hartman, vice president of LA ProPoint, said the dividers are meant to make people feel comfortable for when they return to live theater shows.“It was actually my wife’s idea to do something like seat dividers; something that when people came back to the theaters would make them feel safe,” Hartman said. “Something that could be put between people.”The heavy base of the divider fits underneath the folded-up seats of a theater. The stand can be adjusted for height and be tilted. The clear divider itself is made from polyurethane.“They are very mobile,” Hartman said. “You can lift them up and move them around as needed.”LAProPoint designs, manufactures and installs lighting rigs and other components for theme parks and live performance theaters. Its clients have included the Hollywood Bowl, the Alex Theatre in Glendale, and downtown’s Disney Concert Hall.

Theaters for live performances are not allowed to open yet under the state’s re-opening protocols but hope may be coming.

The state has set a date of June 15 to fully re-open the economy. That would include indoor theaters but health safety protocols for the venues from Los Angeles County Department of Public Health have not been released.

Considering the state’s plans and that the pandemic is only temporary, why would a theater want to have the dividers?Hartman said the dividers are an alternative to not having anything in place. The small size of some theaters is such that even bringing back 25 percent capacity is still going to feel like you are sitting on top of the person closest to you, he added.

“So, this is more of a comfort thing,” Hartman said.

Also, the thinking was that theaters have access to Payroll Protection Program money under recent federal stimulus packages, Hartman continued.“This could be something they could use those funds for and bring people back and make them feel more comfortable,” he added.

LAProPoint hasn’t sold any of the dividers yet. Hartman and company President Mark Riddlesperger will come up with a price point for the device in the coming weeks.

“We are going to make it extremely reasonable because the ones that we are trying to get them out to are existing clients. Maybe a couple hundred dollars per partition,” Hartman said. “We will know more about that (soon).”