IMAX Vanguard: How One Man’s Love Of IMAX Created An Online Fan Community

It’s nearly midnight and I should be going to bed, but instead, I’m in an online waiting room, anxiously watching a progress bar slowly inch its way across the screen. When it gets to the end it’ll be “go time”. The prize? The best seats for the hottest tickets in town. But while it might be stadium seating, the best seats for this event are near the back. That’s because it’s not Taylor Swift at Wembley, but tickets to see Dune: Part Two in IMAX 70mm on the opening weekend on the UK’s biggest screen at the BFI IMAX at Waterloo in London. And the reason I know about it? An online UK community for IMAX enthusiasts called the ‘IMAX Vanguard’

Releases such as Oppenheimer have popularised seeing big films in premium formats, and these days you have to be in the know in advance to have any chance of accessing the best seats for opening weekends in London. However, that wasn’t always the case, as I discovered when I sat down to talk with Rayhaan Sabir (Ray) founder of the IMAX Vanguard community.

The Birth of the IMAX Vanguard

Sabir explains that as recently as the summer of 2023 attendance at BFI IMAX screenings were often sparsely attended. “Whenever I would go and see an IMAX film, the auditoriums were quiet. They were so empty. Opening nights, preview nights. Nobody was there!”

Sabir felt that the BFI itself was not doing a great job of explaining to people why they should be getting excited about the format.

“When Tron: Legacy went on sale the BFI didn’t advertise it. But Tron: Legacy hadn’t been played in IMAX in over 10 years, yet it’s one of the most celebrated IMAX films online! They advertised it as 2D and then they went, ‘We have a 3D version available’, and that changed the whole game.”

“Tron: Legacy has an expanded aspect ratio of 1:90 and for the first 20 minutes it plays in widescreen and as soon as Sam enters the digital world the aspect ratio opens up and the 3D just blows your mind!”

Out of a desire to get others to get to appreciate it he started to post ticket alert updates to the IMAX subreddit to a positive response. When the demand to see IMAX 1.43:1 increased after the release of Oppenheimer, someone suggested that he start a WhatsApp group, so people would see the ticket alerts immediately: the IMAX Vanguard was born.

When this writer joined, the group was just a couple of hundred members, but now there are thousands across 12 separate WhatsApp chats and there’s an X, an Instagram page and Discord channel too. As well as community and dedicated ticket trade chats, it also caters to those closer to the Manchester Printworks (the only UK location outside of London able to screen IMAX 1.43:1), one for films in concert at the Royal Albert Hall, and a filmmaker chat. Naturally, there’s a group dedicated to discussing Chris Nolan movies.

It’s clearly a lot of work but Sabir does it purely out of love of the IMAX experience and the desire for as many people to experience it as possible and screenings are often fully booked. Thanks to Vanguard, the BFI is now able to add additional screenings of films, such as the recent re-release of Interstellar, knowing that they are going to sell out quickly.

Now when he goes to screenings, he loves seeing other members of the Vanguard community and others seeing IMAX for the first time.

“When you walk through those doors and you see that massive screen: if it’s your first time, you’re just taken away completely. I’m always there early to take pictures. I’m always hearing people going, ‘Wow, what is this? This is insane!’ Like, they’ve never, ever seen anything like it.”

The Visceral Impact of IMAX 70mm

I asked Sabir what he thought makes watching IMAX 70mm special, which he did, eloquently.

“I’m going to say this: when you see your first ever IMAX 70mm film, you’ll feel a bit confused; you won’t appreciate it. You’ll feel a bit like, ‘What’s happening?’. That’s exactly what happened to me as a young cinema-goer. But the older I got, the more I understood. And just seeing that world open up to you is incredible, because you get to feel like you’re part of that moving image.

“Not just that, but the auditorium goes quiet, and you just hear this flicker in the back, this projector whirr, and you’re like, ‘What’s going on?’. Because you expect to hear the IMAX speakers crank up, but you just hear this projector. And suddenly, the IMAX speakers and the full 1:43 frame kick in, and you just become lost in this new world. It’s a different world; it’s a completely different world.”

Making Dreams Come True

Sabir’s enthusiasm and the effort he puts in to create the Vanguard community then must be a dream come true for the IMAX, the BFI and Cineworld. However, while he says they are aware of the group he does not have any official connection with them. That said he was able to persuade the BFI to put on a double bill of Blade Runner and Blade Runner: 2049, especially for a terminally ill member of the community:

“We put we put a petition up for one of our community members who’s in palliative care. His dream was to watch Blade Runner in IMAX and so we put a petition up to the BFI. We said, we’re rallying behind our community member, for you to try and action, Sony. And they did. The director of programming was able to get a double bill of Blade Runner in November.”

The Human Connection

More communication is likely to be needed for the next step, too. Sabir says he wants to create a festival, where fans can come together to meet in person to celebrate their mutual love of IMAX.

This is the culmination of what to me seems like the ultimate reason the group exists: an ongoing reaction to the trauma of the pandemic period, in which people were robbed of shared experiences.

So, while cineastes that would be happy to watch movies at home on a laptop or TV, the IMAX Vanguard community celebrate watching being completely immersed in a film, but also with other people: the drama and sense of occasion of that IMAX brings, particularly when there is a film projector involved.

While the greatest excitement in the group is clearly for those occasions where the IMAX film projector is started up, Sabir’s interest in the format stemmed originally from non-Nolan films, such as John Wick: Chapter 4 in dual laser at the Cineworld Leicester Square and Tron: Legacy in 3D.

“When I went and saw the John Wick: Chapter Four preview night, I posted my pictures online. That was the first ever photo I posted on Reddit, and I remember just being so excited, just telling people that I am here watching John Wick in IMAX. Like, you don’t get these opportunities very often,” said Sabir.

In the last few years, there’s no doubt the cinema has taken something of a beating at the hands of COVID-19, the rise of streaming services, and the affordability of large TVs and sound systems. The success of the IMAX Vanguard demonstrates what cinema needs to do to not only survive, but to thrive — and that’s to generate a sense of FOMO, with experiences that they can’t get at home.