I was at a movie at the movie theater and in a part of the movie there was the sound of a fire alarm horn playing in the movie in code 3. I was wondering if someone might hear that in the movie and mistakenly think the movie theater’s fire alarms were sounding.
The theater I was in doesn’t actually have horns, but red simplex vertical strobes on the wall and white speakers on the ceiling.
I’ve had it happen many times where I’ll hear a sound on TV or on the radio that sounds like a fire alarm horn. It definitely grabs my attention for a second, but after that its obvious that it isn’t real.
In a movie, you would obviously have the context of what is happening to go along with the sound as well. So it may startle you for a second like I mentioned above, but the chances of someone thinking it’s the real deal for an extended period of time are slim.
Think about when the radio plays a police siren in the car. It seems real for a few moments, but then it becomes obvious what it really is. Same thing applies.
The fire alarm going off in a movie theater should immediately shut down the projector and bring up the house lights. There should be no confusion at that point.
But yeah, I would say context of the movie would more than likely make people believe what they are hearing is part of the movie. And that most of the time, in a movie or television show, the “fire alarm” sound is a bell or slow-whoop siren, it’s rare they make it realistic. Just like all pull stations activate a deluge sprinkler system…
Thats rather interesting, i didn’t know that was a thing.
Yeah. I had thought when a fire alarm in a movie theater sounded, it just sounded. Everything remained the same in the movie theater except that the fire alarm was going off.
Well, now thinking of it. It makes sense. Movie stops, alarm goes off, alarm has your attention.
Actually, any place that has a voice evac system, any public address system or other audible source (such as background music) has to shut down when the fire alarm system is activated. Current fire codes are requiring a voice evac system in any place of public assembly - gymnasium, auditorium, movie theater, shopping mall, or church would be included in that “public assembly” group. The reason is obvious. If you had a musician putting on a concert in a gym or auditorium and the fire alarm was activated, the people in the room would be unable to clearly hear the instruction over the voice evac system. Another example is a large department store, if they were blasting advertisements over the PA system and the fire alarm system was activate, it would be difficult to hear the voice evac message (imagine two people talking at the same time).
Couple of ways they accomplish this. Simply putting a control relay in-line with the speaker output, shunt tripping the circuit breaker to the audible equipment, or some PA systems have an input built in for the fire alarm system (senses when the input is active and self shuts down). But I’ve seen a couple of movie theaters that take it a step further and just shut down everything in the projector booth. And if the theater is dark (as it is in most movies) have a contactor inline with the lighting to turn the lights on. I even saw in a casino where it would shut down all the “bells and whistles” on the floor but NOT the slot machines!
Older systems, where there is no voice evac do not tend to require a PA system shutdown. In fact, they want to leave the PA system active. Some older theaters rely on the control booth to make an announcement on the sound system in the even the fire alarm is activated. Primitive but that’s how they did it before voice evac systems were required.
I can confirm this. I was at a theater with voice evac and the system activated for a few seconds during a movie. House lights went up immediately and the projector stopped. Once everything was set and they made an “all clear” announcement, everything was restarted.
At least in New York, just about every movie theater built in the past 20-25 years has EVAC, even if the mall it is part of doesn’t. At this point, that covers just about all of them that are still in use.
The movie theater I was in wasn’t part of a mall. It was a standalone theater.
Mine isn’t either, but I’m pretty sure it’s wired to do the same thing. There’s music playing on the PA system in the lobby and halls, and that likely all shuts down in the event of a fire alarm.
ROFL… Typical casino.
Also. Hi. 
In addition to shutting the PA/Sound system down, we’ve even had fire alarm contacts in arena’s activate messages on all of the scrolling LED banners/scoreboards to display “fire alarm, blah blah blah” messages.