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What Fulldome Distributors and Planetariums Are Actually Buying

Every year, filmmakers ask Dome Fest West some version of the same three questions: what are creators actually making that sells? What are distributors buying? What are venues buying? This Fulldome Forum, held July 9, 2026, our free monthly conversation for the fulldome community, put two distributors and a planetarium director in the same room to answer all three, on the record.


The panel: Tina Ratterman, founder of Big & Digital and co-founder of CineMetrics, who has been distributing fulldome and giant screen films since 2003. Eda Karaatli-Rentsch, sales and marketing manager at Reef Distribution, joining from Seoul at close to midnight her time. And Becky LaBrecque, director of the Shiras Planetarium in Marquette, Michigan, who runs her dome as a single class period inside a public high school. Ryan Moore moderated.


The conversation ran nearly two hours and covered a lot of ground. Here's what matters most if you're making fulldome content, or trying to get it seen.


Figure 1: Becky LaBrecque's dome at Shiras Planetarium in Marquette, Michigan, the only planetarium in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a nonprofit, school-based, self-funded venue that just completed a $1,040,000 renovation.
Figure 1: Becky LaBrecque's dome at Shiras Planetarium in Marquette, Michigan, the only planetarium in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a nonprofit, school-based, self-funded venue that just completed a $1,040,000 renovation.

What Creators Should Keep in Mind


Know your target audience before you start producing, not after. Ratterman was direct about the basics that still trip people up: "It has to have an engaging story. It has to be accurate... You can't just tell people stuff. You have to give emotion and make it an engaging experience."


There's a real difference between being distribution-ready and distributor-ready. Distribution-ready means your film is finished but you haven't lined up a distributor or a plan yet. Distributor-ready means the marketing materials, the deliverables, and the release plan are already built, which is the harder, more valuable state to reach. Ratterman's advice: get theaters and distributors reacting to rough cuts, well before the film is locked. "You really should work with the distributor before you finish your film," she said, especially if you're aiming for an exclusive distribution deal, since that distributor needs lead time to plan the release before the film even exists in final form.


That early feedback matters because a single detail can quietly kill a sale to school audiences. Ratterman recalled a giant screen film that lost bookings over a table with alcohol and cigarettes visible in one shot. It wasn't the story. It was one frame.


Think about marketing assets while you're still shooting. Ratterman has had to hire an illustrator to paint a poster from scratch for a fully animated film because there was no usable footage to pull a still from. Capture behind-the-scenes stills and key art moments during production, not after.


On format: two runtimes still dominate the market, a 40-minute cut for larger and tilted domes, and a 22-minute cut that smaller and school-based venues can actually use for field trips. If you can produce both, do it. That's the difference between fitting one kind of venue and fitting most of them.


Figure 2: Ratterman's own slide from the panel, straight from Big & Digital: the 40-minute / 22-minute runtime split, and the checklist she said every strong film needs, engaging story, scientific accuracy, immersive audio, emotion, and an ending that leaves the audience wanting more.
Figure 2: Ratterman's own slide from the panel, straight from Big & Digital: the 40-minute / 22-minute runtime split, and the checklist she said every strong film needs, engaging story, scientific accuracy, immersive audio, emotion, and an ending that leaves the audience wanting more.

And if you're distributing internationally, plan for more than one narrator. Becky LaBrecque pushed for multiple narration options tuned to different regions, and for getting outside eyes on your humor before it travels. A joke that lands in one country can read as a liability in a school district somewhere else.


Figure 3: Becky's "Teacher-Ready vs. Audience-Ready" checklist maps closely to what creators need to have in hand: grade-level alignment, standards, a classroom guide, and pre/post-show activities on one side; a trailer, stills, a short description, well-paced tone, clear narration, and school-safe humor on the other.
Figure 3: Becky's "Teacher-Ready vs. Audience-Ready" checklist maps closely to what creators need to have in hand: grade-level alignment, standards, a classroom guide, and pre/post-show activities on one side; a trailer, stills, a short description, well-paced tone, clear narration, and school-safe humor on the other.

How Planetariums Actually Decide


LaBrecque walked through the real math behind a booking decision, and it's a useful gut-check for any creator sizing up their market. Her dome seats 60 people at $10 a seat, and she runs 40 public film slots a year total. A $5,000 annual license needs roughly 600 ticket sales just to break even, which is a quarter of her entire year's slate for one title. An annual license only makes sense for her if the film has field trip value that lets her use it again and again, not just a one-time public run.


Figure 4: The exact math from Becky's own slide: a $5,000 annual license needs about 10 sold-out shows, or roughly 600 tickets, against only 40 public film slots a year. That's about 25% of a full year's public programming tied up in one title before it starts earning.
Figure 4: The exact math from Becky's own slide: a $5,000 annual license needs about 10 sold-out shows, or roughly 600 tickets, against only 40 public film slots a year. That's about 25% of a full year's public programming tied up in one title before it starts earning.

Boards want predictable numbers, not percentages. "I can't use percentages with a board. They hate that," LaBrecque said. Flat, known costs are easier to defend than a gate-share model when you're explaining a budget to a school district.


That's part of a broader decision-making philosophy LaBrecque described as venue-centered, not trend-centered. Rather than chasing whatever's popular elsewhere, she runs every potential booking through the same questions: does it fit our mission, does it serve our audience, can we afford it, can we staff it, does it protect our time, does it help us build the space we envision? "We are not trying to copy a model," her slide put it. "We are building the right model for us."


Figure 5: The six questions Shiras Planetarium runs every booking decision through, and the line underneath: "We are not trying to copy a model. We are building the right model for us."
Figure 5: The six questions Shiras Planetarium runs every booking decision through, and the line underneath: "We are not trying to copy a model. We are building the right model for us."

Real field trip value means the grade level is actually accurate for today's classrooms, tested with real teachers, and the film comes with a classroom guide that has genuine discussion prompts, not just a vocabulary word dropped into narration. Technical fit matters too. Compatibility issues that would have been invisible on an older system show up immediately on newer ones, and preview access before booking lets a venue catch problems before they become the audience's problem.


Marketing materials have to be usable as-is. LaBrecque was blunt about the alternative: "We need some still images, or we're just screenshotting crap and making it up in Canva." A trailer with narration you can actually hear is not optional.

For a lot of smaller venues, rentals do more work than long licenses. The price and timeline are locked in advance, which is exactly the predictability a small, self-funded program needs. LaBrecque broke down exactly what that trade-off looks like on her own slide: revenue-share models, variable costs, and unclear terms are hard for a venue her size to plan around, while flat fees, clear terms, and a simple booking process are what actually let her say yes.


Figure 6: What's hard for a small venue to plan around, versus what actually works, straight from Becky's slide.
Figure 6: What's hard for a small venue to plan around, versus what actually works, straight from Becky's slide.

How Distributors Are Navigating It


Ratterman broke down the three real paths for getting a film to market. Exclusive distribution means one distributor manages every territory and every sub-distributor relationship, which is simpler for the creator but layers commissions at each level. Non-exclusive means the creator manages multiple distributor relationships directly, which requires holding a single, consistent price list so distributors aren't undercutting each other. Self-distribution is increasingly viable on its own, especially with tracking tools like CineMetrics handling the leasing and reporting workflow.


Figure 7: Ratterman's slide laying out Big & Digital's three distribution paths: exclusive, non-exclusive, and self-distribution through Guided Self-Distribution and CineMetrics.
Figure 7: Ratterman's slide laying out Big & Digital's three distribution paths: exclusive, non-exclusive, and self-distribution through Guided Self-Distribution and CineMetrics.

The licensing terms themselves are shifting. Both distributors pushed back on the old model of 50-year lifetime buyouts in favor of shorter terms, one, three, or five years, plus newer gate-share and ticket-share arrangements that split financial risk between the creator and the venue instead of putting it all on one side. "I don't do a license longer than five years," Ratterman said. "It's not good for the industry."


Content categories are widening past astronomy. Both Reef and Big & Digital pointed to wellness and meditation content, and music and entertainment shows, as fast-growing categories that didn't exist in this market a few years ago. Karaatli-Rentsch put it simply: "The dome can actually work 24 hours. You can really target different groups."


Figure 8: Eda Karaatli-Rentsch's introduction slide for Reef Distribution, the Seoul-based distributor she represents on the panel.
Figure 8: Eda Karaatli-Rentsch's introduction slide for Reef Distribution, the Seoul-based distributor she represents on the panel.

International distribution adds real complexity: multiple resolution and format deliverables as LED domes enter the market, translation work, and market-by-market review for content that doesn't travel the way it was intended to.


Mobile and portable domes are a real market, and a growing one, but a secondary one for distributors. Margins are thin, and handing over a clean, unprotected film file to an unfamiliar operator is a genuine IP-security risk that both distributors said they manage carefully.


And festivals function as marketing and awards infrastructure more than a live sales floor. "I don't find that there are film buyers really there looking for content," Ratterman said. "But then you get awards, and the awareness for your show is going on social media through the film festival. It's part of a whole marketing plan."


How Creators Can Work Better With Distributors


Call a distributor before the film is finished, not after. That single point came up from every panelist, in different words, across two hours.


Ask for what you actually need. LaBrecque's line on this was the simplest of the day: "If you don't ask, they can't say yes." Distributors can't build a deal around a need they don't know you have.


Know and track your own performance. Ratterman's advice to producers: request reports from your distributors and theaters. You own the IP. You should know how many people are seeing your film and what it's earning, not just trust that it's out there working.


Think in packages, not just single titles. LaBrecque's instinct as a programmer: a standalone destination or attraction film is a harder sell for a small venue than a themed series she can market as an ongoing reason to come back each month.


And treat licensing terms as a real conversation. The consistent message from the panel was that shorter terms, honest reporting, and actual back-and-forth between creator, distributor, and venue produce better outcomes for everyone in the room than a one-size-fits-all deal.


Forum Speakers




This is roughly one hour of a two-hour conversation, distilled. The full recording, including audience questions on destination films, portable planetariums, and which three festivals each panelist would send their team to every year, is up on YouTube.


Next month's Fulldome Forum turns the lens around: leveraging festivals for your success, whether you're a creator or a venue looking for great content, with real case studies from people who've done it. Fulldome Forums are free, monthly, and open to anyone in the community. Browse upcoming Forums, or suggest and vote on the next topic you want us to cover.

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