Theater Seats from FORTRESS Go Beyond Customization

View fullsize

‘Customization’ is a term that’s loosely thrown around when it comes to home design. Many companies offer one style of sofa in several different fabrics and sizes and call it a day. Fortress Seating, however, takes the term “customization” very seriously.

Made to Order

For one, FORTRESS doesn’t begin making any seating until an order is placed. The company’s warehouse is not full of standardized chairs waiting to be shipped. And while it may take a little longer to get your seating, clients can get everything from popular models and sizes in popular fabrics and finishes, to anything they can dream up.

For example, one interior designer client came in with an image from a fashion design magazine. It was a picture of a stylish sitting room highlighting a set of ornately patterned, Victorian-style, tasseled chairs. The customer wanted theater chairs that would mimic this style, but look like a couch from behind and theater chairs from the front. Armed with only this magazine photo, FORTRESS went to work.

The team made sketches, pulled samples, and built a prototype to show the customer for approval. The client loved them! This completely custom set of theater seats now sits in the client’s home theater, featuring, plush velvet, golden tassles, and exactly the look the client wanted: Pocket Arms, Fortress Seating’s most popular accessory divide the couch into individual seats, accomplishing the look of theater seats from the front, sofa from the back.

Made to Fit

Another great example of FORTRESS’ dedication to customization is a theater with a curved back wall that could not be altered. Armed with CAD drawings from the installer, FORTRESS went to work to create theater seats that would work within the room’s odd dimensions. Using plywood, FORTRESS went above and beyond, building a template to scale to see how these seats might lay out.

“We like to see how it will all layout, exactly, before we build it,” says Gabi Wolper, vice president of Fortress Seating. “In this theater the installer wanted three seating areas, so we are experimenting with shapes, sizes, and accessories to see how it will all fit in the room.”

View fullsize

Made to Last

Of course, all home theater seats that FORTRESS builds are inherently made to last. See our recent blog post, “Home Theater Seating: It’s What’s Inside That Counts,”  for details on Fortress Seating build quality to read all about what goes into building seating that lasts a lifetime.

So next time you hear a manufacturer’s ability to create “custom” solutions, really stop and consider what that means. If you’re building a media room or private cinema and need theater seats to match room dimensions, want custom finishes, fabrics, arrangements, and even ground-up design, FORTRESS does it all. Like Wolper says, “If the client can sketch it on a napkin, we can build it.”

Home Theater Seating: It’s What’s Inside That Counts

If you’ve ever purchased a sofa or chair either online or in a store, you know that quality can vary wildly. While that $700 sectional may have looked great and seemed like a good deal, when your elbow goes right through the arm rest and you have to go through the hassle of returning it (if you can), you start to wonder if it was such a great deal after all. Home theater seating is no different. Quality is not a given, even if you are paying big bucks.

View fullsize

Fortress Seating prides itself on quality – not just on the outside, but the inside as well. Every chair, every arm rest, every chaise lounge is, at its core, made from real wood instead of cardboard or other flimsy materials like some furniture manufacturers use. Below you’ll see a Fortess Seating arm rest in the making, complete with cupholder and an opening for controls. The entire armrest is made of Birch ply and Alder hard wood. And we all know that a strong core makes for a structurally sound body.

Fortress Seating inserts metal t-nuts in all the wood, so the components can be bolted together, and everything is metal-to-metal connections. Below, a Fortress employee uses these metal fasteners to construct an armrest.

View fullsize

While you might think that this extremely comfortable home theater seating is made mostly of foam, even the plush Fortress Seating chaise lounges are built using solid wood. Below, a FORTRESS employee puts the finishing touches on a chaise lounge frame.

View fullsize

If you’re building a media room or private cinema, build quality in your home theater seating shouldn’t be something you compromise on. The last thing you want is to spend a hefty sum on your electronics, only to skimp on the seating and find it uncomfortable and falling apart in a few months. Carefully consider your options and ask questions. Build quality goes a long way toward ensuring that your investment will last a lifetime. With the right stuff inside, you can’t go wrong.

SMART CHAIR TECHNOLOGY

Introduced at CEDIA and representing a significant advancement in the seating category, the new Smart Chair Technology seamlessly interacts with home automation and control systems.  Featuring state-of-the-art human occupancy sensors, preset seating positions and numerous other options.  Not only can control systems be programmed to trigger automated responses based on human motion or movement taking place in the chair such as sitting or standing, the smart cair senses when an impingement occurs and will cease all motorized functions or movement.  Available in any model.

Fortress Seating® Named 2016 CE Pro Brand Leader for Third Year

Fortress Seating takes home top honors in the seating category from the industry’s top integrators

LA VERNE, CA (JUNE 15, 2016) Fortress Seating®—leader in home theater, media room, and contract seating—announced today that it has once again been named the CE Pro Brand Leader for Seating, part of the Home Enhancements category.

The award comes from the CE Pro Top 100 highest-revenue residential integration firms, who are surveyed each year to determine their preferred brands in the categories of audio, video, home automation, networking, lighting controls, and more. Each integration firm is given the opportunity to name the brands they supported the year prior. The winning brand is the one that is mentioned by most companies, therefore making it the product leading integration firms use most in that category. This is the third year in a row Fortress Seating has taken home this prestigious honor, a true testament to the brand’s offering.

“We put so much careful detail and attention into crafting every seat, it’s rewarding when the industry’s best-of-the-best integrators recognize our efforts,” says Gabi Wolper of Fortress Seating. “We are extremely honored and thank CE Pro and the CE Pro Top 100. Fortress is proud to be among such great company in terms of other manufacturers; not to mention installed in some of the finest home cinemas in the world, providing luxurious comfort, quality, and style.”

A design-oriented manufacturer with near-endless customization capabilities, Fortress has been providing home theater, lifestyle, and corporate seating since the late 1990s, stressing comfort, design, and quality. Sensing a void in the custom seating market, the company drew upon the experience it gained building commercial seating, giving customers the strongest theater and media room seating options available.

Throughout the month, CE Pro will present each of the categories in detail, including the top five brands and every brand mentioned in a given category.

Those interested in learning more about Fortress Seating are encouraged to view the www.fortresseating.com website, e-mail info@fortresseating.com, call (909) 593-8600, and follow @FortressSeating  on Twitter and "Like" Fortress on Facebook.  

About Fortress Seating
Founded in the 1930's, Fortress is a manufacturer of upholstered furniture.  In the late 1990's Fortress began building home theater seating and with over 8 decades of experience, Fortress rapidly became the ‘go to’ company when off-the-shelf seating was not the answer.  Fortress has been providing exceptional solutions to all seating challenges, addressing and solving the most demanding seating requirements.  Fortress sets the standard for innovative designs, full customization, and exceptional quality that is recognized globally.

Media Contact:
Katye (McGregor) Bennett; KMB Communications, Inc.
+1 (425) 328-8640
katye@kmbcomm.com
www.kmbcomm.com
@KMB_Comm