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Premier Exhibitions Inc is an
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
-based company that organizes
travelling exhibitions. , the company owned 5,500 ''Titanic'' relics with approximately 1,300 on display in various countries.
Its two most prominent exhibits are artifacts from the ''
RMS Titanic
RMS ''Titanic'' was a British passenger liner, operated by the White Star Line, which sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United ...
'' (for which it is the sole legal guardian of the artifacts) and ''
BODIES... The Exhibition'' in which it displays
cadaver
A cadaver or corpse is a dead human body that is used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a living human being. Stud ...
s arranged in lifelike poses via
plastination
Plastination is a technique or process used in anatomy to preserve bodies or body parts, first developed by Gunther von Hagens in 1977. The water and fat are replaced by certain plastics, yielding specimens that can be touched, do not smell or ...
from the
Dalian Medical University (through its Dalian Medical University Plastination Company subsidiary)
in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. It has multiple exhibits of both ''Bodies'' and ''Titanic'' running at the same time in different venues. In 2008, it entered into a 10-year lease for more than at the
Luxor Las Vegas for exhibits of ''Titanic'' and ''Bodies'' there.
By 2013, more than 25 million people had visited the company's ''Titanic'' exhibits in Orlando, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and elsewhere.
In May 2015 the company opened Premier on 5th, a flagship exhibition space on Fifth Avenue in New York City that housed "''
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves a ...
'': The Exhibition" and "The Discovery of King Tut." On June 14, 2016, Premier Exhibitions filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whe ...
.
In late August 2018, at least three groups were vying for the right to purchase the 5,500 ''Titanic'' relics that were an asset of the bankrupt company in the case titled ''RMS Titanic Inc., 16-02230, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Middle District of Florida (Jacksonville)''. Two of the offers for the collection were just under US $20 million, including one by museums in England and Northern Ireland, with assistance by
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post-New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability w ...
. Oceanographer
Robert Ballard
Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30, 1942) is an American retired Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of ...
told the news media that he favored this bid since it would ensure that the memorabilia would be permanently displayed in
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
and in
Greenwich. A decision as to the outcome was to be made by Paul M. Glenn, a
United States district court
The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...
judge in
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...
.
History
RMS Titanic Inc.
RMS Titanic co-founder G. Michael Harris conducted the first salvage operation of ''Titanic'' in October 1986. The first ''Titanic'' expedition began in July 1987 and was financed by Titanic Ventures Limited Partnership, George H. Tulloch, Oceanic Research & Exploration, and Harris. These co-partners led a $6 million expedition to the ship, and recovered artifacts beneath the surface of the North Atlantic. Co-founder and RMS Titanic Chairman Tulloch (1944–2004), owner of the largest
BMW dealership in the U.S., led five of the expeditions. In order to recover these artifacts, Tulloch, Harris, and their team completed 32 dives to ''Titanic'' in the ''Nautile'', a deep-diving submersible chartered by Oceanic Research and Exploration in a partnership with
Ifremer
IFREMER (Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer; ) is an oceanographic institution in Brest, France.
Scope of works
Ifremer focuses its research activities in the following areas:
* Monitoring, use and enhancement of coa ...
, the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea. This is the greatest number of deep-sea dives ever completed for any televised project.
The company had an
OTC ticker symbol of
SOS
is a Morse code distress signal (), used internationally, that was originally established for maritime use. In formal notation is written with an overscore line, to indicate that the Morse code equivalents for the individual letters of "SOS" ...
T. In 1994 it won a Virginia court order to get salvor-in-possession rights to the ship.
In 1998, the company reported net income of $4 million on almost $10 million in revenues. The following year, revenue dropped to $6.4 million, resulting in a slight loss.
When Tulloch died in 2004, he was lauded by the
Titanic International Society
The Titanic International Society is a US 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the history of the ''Titanic'' and the events surrounding the great ocean liner's sinking on April 15, 1912, when more than 1,500 people die ...
, whose president said of him, "He has done more to preserve the memory of Titanic than anyone else". In 1992, the company, through a reverse merger, formed itself as RMS Titanic Inc. Tulloch co-lead operations on the ''Titanic'' in 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1998 along with Harris who served on the Board of Directors as well as all aspects of the companies exhibition touring business. Harris along with his team of experts also designed the traveling as well as the permanent Titanic Exhibitions worldwide.
Harris opened the first permanent ''Titanic'' exhibition on April 10, 1999; it is the largest ''Titanic'' exhibition in the world, located in
Orlando, Florida
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...
; he sold it to Premier Exhibitions in 2012. Harris was the expedition leader in the summer of 2000 with over 120 hours on the wreck of ''Titanic'' and made eleven dives in the Russian Deep Diving
Mir submersibles ''MIR1'' and ''MIR2''. The 2000 expedition included the last manned salvage dives to the ''Titanic'', but was the most successful from an artifact recovery operations standpoint. Harris also found some perfume bottles from the ''Titanic'' on August 2, 2000, in the ''Mir2'' Russian submersible along with his Director of Operations, David Walker.
The television documentary “Return to the Titanic….LIVE”, hosted by
Telly Savalas, was shown in 27 countries in 1987. A feature was the supposed live opening of the assistant
purser's safe on television.
RMS Titanic and Premier continued to be involved in
litigation over the matter.
1999 takeover
In 1999, investors from
SFX Entertainment, along with co-founder G. Michael Harris and Arnie Geller, led a takeover and ousting of George Tulloch and the company's attorney. Geller was installed as President and CEO of the company and Harris was installed as Chief Operating Officer as well as Secretary of RMS Titanic, Inc. They fired all other officers and directors and were the only two remaining directors. John Joslyn was a small shareholder and took part in the takeover of the company in 1999. Tulloch sued and was awarded $2.5 million in damages.
The abrupt takeover alarmed the governments of the U.K., France, Canada, and the U.S., especially when one of the insurgent investors was quoted as saying the new management was intent on cutting into ''Titanic'' hull to recover more treasures and gain increased profits.
''Bodies''
In October 2004, the company changed its name to Premier Exhibitions and changed its ticker symbol to initially to PXHB on the OTC, after it branched out with the Bodies exhibition after it acquired The Universe Within Touring Company, LLC.
''The Body'' exhibits became the primary money maker for the firm with 19 separate human anatomy exhibitions at 33 venues while the Titanic was on exhibit at 15 locations in 2009.
In 2009 the company reported that 19% of its revenue came from Titanic and 67% from ''Bodies'' with the rest among its other exhibitions.
''The Body'' exhibits have generated considerable controversy over their appropriateness and questioning the practice of selling cadavers for public display without family permission.
The company changed its ticker symbol again to PRXI when it was listed on NASDAQ. The new ticker symbol is PRXIQ
2008
On Nov. 6, 2008, Mark Sellers, a 16% share holder in Premier Exhibitions Inc., issued a press release demanding the resignation of Premier’s CEO Arnie Geller, lambasting him for taking $1.2 million in compensation even as the shareholders saw their investment values plunge, with the stocks price dropping from $17 a share to under $2 a share.
When Geller refused, a proxy battle erupted with Sellers’ firm nominating its own slate of directors in what amounted to a hostile takeover.
By January 2009, Sellers decisively won the battle, was appointed as unpaid, non-executive chairman and fired Geller.
2009–2013
In 2009, its other exhibits include "Dialog in the Dark" in which visitors pass through an exhibit totally without light. and "
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...
: The Exhibition". By 2013, more than 25 million people had visited the company's ''Titanic'' exhibits in Orlando, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and elsewhere, said the company.
2016
After facing legal challenges and the early closure of its "Saturday Night Live" exhibition, Premier filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2016.
2018–present
, RMS Titanic Inc. continues to be the wreck's legal salvager. Starting in 2009, they changed their approach to that of closer co-operation with ''Titanic'' preservation and regulatory bodies.
['The lights are finally on'. '']National Geographic
''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...
'' magazine, April 2012, Hampton Sides.
In the fall of 2018, the 5,500 artifacts from the ''Titanic'' were all for sale after the bankruptcy filing of Premier Exhibitions in the United States. The
National Maritime Museum,
National Museums Northern Ireland
National Museums Northern Ireland (NMNI) (formerly ''National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland'') is a museum service in Northern Ireland, consisting of the Ulster American Folk Park, the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum and the Ulster M ...
, Titanic Belfast and Titanic Foundation Limited had joined together as a consortium that raised money to purchase the artifacts. They intended to keep all of the items together as a single exhibit. The museums were critical of the bid process set by the bankruptcy court which set the minimum bid at US$21.5 million (£16.5m). The consortium did not have enough funding to meet that amount and was unable to place a bid on the specified date, 11 October 2018.
A critical opinion piece published in June 2020 accused Premier Exhibitions, and specifically its subsidiary R.M.S. Titanic Inc, of foul play over the auction of the ′artifacts, suggesting they declared bankruptcy to get around its commitment to keep the collections together and on public display. The piece described the company as "bandits" and "not fit for purpose".
A further controversy arose in 2020, when RMS Titanic Inc. announced plans to retrieve ''Titanic'' wireless radio and exhibit it. The U.S. government challenged the plan in a filing with the
4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in June, contending that any such expedition, which might "physically alter or disturb" the deteriorating wreck, requires authorization from the U.S. Department of Commerce and would breach an agreement with the U.K. that regulates entry into the hull.
References
{{Reflist, colwidth=30em
1987 establishments in the United States
Education companies established in 1987
Entertainment companies established in 1987
Transport companies established in 1987
Companies based in Atlanta
Museum companies
RMS Titanic
Traveling exhibits