Before there was Ecco Cine Supply, there was Thomas Rüttgers, coming off the sale of his family-owned theatrical business.
With his family having started the business in the early 60’s and with him having joined them in the 80’s, he has more than 35 years of experience in the cinema industry. He eventually took over digital projections and continued to grow the family business, expanding it out of Germany into surrounding countries such as Poland until it became the main European integration company.
This experience gave him industry insights that ended up playing a critical role in rebranding himself once the company sold in 2012.
Knowing that his career wouldn’t end with the sale of the business, Rüttgers found himself challenged when the sale came with a strict, 30-month non-compete.
Extremely limited by what he could do and work with, his decades of experience taught him that he needed to find an innovative technology that would not only attract moviegoers to theaters, but that was new to the market and that would make for repeat customers—meaning that it would survive and still be relevant for years to come.
On top of this, he was unable to start his own company for the duration of non-compete—further limiting his options for continuing his successful career.
After having previously come across D-BOX’s high-fidelity haptic cinema seats in Los Angeles and then again later at CinemaCon, Rüttgers knew that he had his solution. He flew to Montreal to visit with D-BOX founder and then-CEO Claude McMaster and became a European consultant for the company for the duration of his non-compete. When it finished, he restarted in business as Ecco—and created a massive D-BOX expansion in German-speaking territories.
While in the beginning he admits it was more difficult to sell the concept due to the lack of content at the time, he believed in what D-BOX was doing—so much so that he would make the investment for the exhibitors themselves, giving them the opportunity to buy it back from him later when the seats proved to be successful—and they often did.
Even all these years later, D-BOX’s haptic technology continues to bring results for Rüttgers and Ecco.
From the first moment that he integrated them with his clients, he’s had nothing but positive feedback. He says that the technology is reliable, robust and solid—and that in some cases, systems he sold more than 12 years ago are still fully functional!
Today, Ecco has sold a few full VIP D-BOX cinemas and has approximately 170 screens with multiple rows of haptic motion seats. This number is growing at the steady rate of 10-20 screens every year, with some now located in the UK, Turkey, Egypt, Austria, Norway, South Africa and more!
The Ecco and D-BOX partnership is one that has stood the test of time for both companies, and D-BOX is proud to have Ecco as the official provider of D-BOX maintenance and service work in Europe. Per Rüttgers, the relationship has always been mutually beneficial for both companies, as they value learning from one another and growing together.
Ecco and D-BOX take the time to see each other at least twice per year outside of conventions, allowing them to stay committed and on the same page as to how to further immerse moviegoers into their cinematic favourites.
The partnership has gone on so long that it has now almost come full circle, with one of Rüttgers’ two sons having joined him in the now-family business.