Closed Captioning Solution Launch During the 17th Annual Festival of Human Abilities

The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, Calif., is enhancing visitor experiences and making its Honda Pacific Visions Theater even more accessible with the integration of Moverio® augmented reality smart glasses. Moverio AR Smart Glasses provide an immersive, cutting-edge entertainment experience by displaying real-time captions and subtitles directly onto the glasses, eliminating a need for a separate closed captioning screen. The glasses will be implemented in preparation for the 17th Annual Festival of Human Abilities happening Jan. 25-26.

“Making information easily available and expanding accessibility to our visitors are incredibly important to the Aquarium, especially as we celebrate the creative talents and abilities of people with disabilities during our annual Festival of Human Abilities,” said Fahria Qader, director, Pacific Visions and Architecture, Aquarium of the Pacific. “The Epson Moverio smart glasses enhance our new multisensory film in the Honda Pacific Visions Theater by providing closed captioning in a way that enables viewers to watch the film without having to turn their heads away to read captions.”

The Aquarium of the Pacific is Southern California’s largest aquarium, and the fourth most-attended aquarium in the nation with about 1.7 million people visiting each year. It is home to 12,000 animals and more than 100 exhibits that represent the diversity of the Pacific Ocean and offers educational programs for people of all ages. The new Pacific Visions wing is the latest expansion that opened in 2019 and contains a state-of-the-art 180-degree multisensory immersive Honda Pacific Visions Theater. The use of Moverio smart glasses enhances the Aquarium’s new multisensory film Designing Our Future that provides opportunities to delve deeper into sustainability and how we can create a better planet here on Earth.

“The sense of community and care for the environment spearheaded by the Aquarium is a shared vision with Epson, where our business is anchored in a commitment to enabling people to interact with content without boundaries,” said Remi Del Mar, senior product manager, Epson America, Inc. “We are honored to be a closed captioning solution offered by the Aquarium as they continue to look for more ways to expand accessibility for their new theater experience to the hard of hearing and deaf community.”

The Moverio AR smart glasses will be debuted during the Aquarium’s Festival of Human Abilities, where visitors can watch performances and learn unique adaptive skills taught by artists and other experts with disabilities. Featured at the festival are hip-hop dancers in wheelchairs, a sign language choir, a guitarist who is blind, and other inspiring performing artists. Along with these music and dance performances, the Aquarium will feature art demonstrations and displays by local artists with disabilities.

“The Office of Deaf Access estimates three million deaf and hard of hearing persons reside in California, and greater Los Angeles and surrounding counties is home to over 800,000 deaf and hard of hearing people,” continued Del Mar. “It seemed natural for Epson and the Aquarium to work together to make our new theater experience even more accessible,” said Qader.

The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, Calif. is open to the public seven days a week, except Dec. 25. The Festival of Human Abilities will be held Saturday, Jan. 25 and Sunday, Jan. 26 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Additional information can be found at http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/.