The Aquarium of the Pacific Will Expand

The Long Beach aquarium, Aquarium of the Pacific, will be expanding in the next few years. Just think parents, more to explore, oh, you're tired already, too bad. We wonder how date nights will go with nights at the aquarium with the new additions.

The new Pacific Visions wing, that sort of looks like a whale, on purpose, is slated to finish in 2018. The new theater sounds like something out of an anime with floor projection and wired seats.


Details on the expansion include


·         Honda Pacific Visions Theater
The two-story, 300-seat Honda Pacific Visions Theater will include a 130-foot-wide by 32-foot-tall screen, curved in a 180 degree arc and a retractable 30-foot-diameter floor projection disc to immerse visitors in a virtual ocean environment. The theater will bring to life epic ocean stories, allowing audiences to discover new species, witness the processes and phenomena of Earth’s ecosystems, and grapple with the many challenges facing the natural world. Each seat will be wired for interactivity, providing visitors opportunities to explore a range of possible trajectories for our planet and underscoring how human action can lead to a more sustainable future. All stories will be developed by the Aquarium in partnership with leading scientists, filmmakers, storytellers, and digital artists. The infrastructure created for this theater will allow for media-rich performances, panel discussions, community meetings, and educational seminars that can incorporate live broadcast feeds and streaming media.

·         Main Entrance and Front Plaza

The Aquarium’s redesigned Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Entrance will include an expanded ticketing area and special members’ entrance, as well as a Member Services Center. The front plaza will serve as a community gathering space, which will feature outdoor programs and art installations.

·         Changing Exhibit Gallery
The expanded Changing Exhibit Gallery will double the existing changing exhibit gallery space, adding a total of 6,000 square feet. The new space will feature live animals and immersive interactive multi-media displays and expansive dynamic projected wall murals to complement and foster deeper engagement with the narrative and themes of each temporary exhibit. These exhibits will be rotated periodically to reflect current scientific issues and discoveries and will be developed in conjunction with the theater experiences.

·         Art Gallery and Orientation Gallery
Visitors will enter the new wing though the Pacific Visions Art Gallery featuring a range of changing installations to establish an emotional connection to the ocean and marine life. Visitors will then proceed into the Orientation Gallery, which will showcase a 26-foot-wide by 8-foot-tall media wall to introduce visitors to the challenges and promises of the future to be explored in the theater.