How to Get a Sensory Cinema Experience
Movie theaters can be overwhelming for anyone. It’s a huge action, a piercing smell of buttery popcorn and an incredible volume. But for a child with a sensory processing disorder or other sensory sensitivities, it can be such an overwhelming experience that a parent may decide to avoid it entirely.
This is why, a couple of times a month, some cinemas turn on lights, muffle the sound, and let kids get up and move around as needed.
AMC Theaters partnered with the Autism Society to showcase their Sensory Films program, which features a family film on the second and fourth Saturday of the month and an adult film on Wednesday nights. Next Saturday will be Sonic the Hedgehog in nearly 200 locations .
Likewise, Regal Cinemas’s My Way Matinee program is “a safe place where our guests can express themselves freely, sing, cry, dance, walk, talk or scream while enjoying the latest Hollywood movies,” according to its website . Show times are 10:30 am on the second and fourth Saturday of the month through March at participating locations and at a discounted price of $ 6.50 per ticket.