Home theatre service records dream growth

LOVELAND – Hollywood isn’t the only place to make money in entertainment.

Loveland-based Dream Theater Colorado is growing its 25-year-old business by catering to the growing home-entertainment industry and melding it with rapidly changing technology.

“If it has to do with entertainment in the home, that’s what we do,´ said president and owner Mark Hovey.

When Hovey purchased Dream Theater Colorado in August 2003, the company was focused on satellite sales and installation. The previous owner had begun to evolve the business to offer home theater solutions to add value and possibly boost revenues.

At the time Hovey purchased the company, about 90 percent of the business was in satellites, with the remaining in home theater.

Today, after a merger and rebranding effort, the company has flip-flopped – with nearly all of its revenue from the home entertainment business. In 2005, the company experienced more than $600,000 in revenues, an increase of 380 percent from 2003. The rapid growth makes Dream Theater Colorado the second-fastest growing company in the region, according to the latest Business Report Mercury 100 ranking.

Although the staff is small, Hovey hasn’t done it alone. Shortly after purchasing the company, he was contacted by Gabe Hernandez about a potential partnership. Hernandez had been running an in-home audio and video consulting company, but was interested in working with some of the region’s more established companies.

Hernandez said he called a number of Dream Theater Colorado’s competitors, but didn’t receive so much as a return call until he left a message for Hovey. The two quickly realized that Dream Theater Colorado’s client base would benefit greatly from Hernandez’s expertise.

Hernandez is a registered calibration specialist, one of the few in the state, Hovey explained. A calibration specialist is trained to ensure that audio and video equipment is working at its optimum level – taking into account such elements as room dimensions, sound wavelength and intensity and proper bandwidth.

The initial plan was for the two companies to partner, but that’s not how it worked.

“We realized that we needed to do this under one umbrella,” Hernandez said.

The companies joined forces and moved forward on a rebranding campaign that would meld the two into a complete home-technology integration company.

Dream Theater Colorado isn’t only about optimizing home entertainment systems. The company offers wiring services, whole-house integration and even construction consulting on pre-build projects.

The company is seeing increasing demand in the new home market for whole-house wiring systems that integrate not only entertainment electronics, but also computers, telephones and even lighting. Installing whole-house systems, and even small systems, requires plenty of planning. Because of this, Dream Theater Colorado is working on educating consumers and homebuilders about the latest technologies, what they require to work properly and how incorporating such elements as part of the home construction process is really the only way to have the best possible system.

It is not uncommon for Dream Theater Colorado to tell a homeowner that the wiring system installed in their relatively new home will not support the latest technologies.

“Most builders are building homes that are 10 years behind,” Hernandez said.

The most common problem the company sees is that the wiring doesn’t meet the current industry standards. A major goal for the company is to increase awareness of such standards.

“We have several builders who are working with us,” Hovey said.

Builder Harry Poehlmann said that offerings such as those from Dream Theater Colorado are in high demand among the high-end demographic.

“With our clientele, pretty much everyone wants it,” he said. “We rarely do a project that doesn’t at least get wiring for a surround system.”

But Hovey and Hernandez said Dream Theater Colorado’s services aren’t only for the wealthy. Hovey estimated that the average project runs about $7,000 and that of the 48 projects the company did last year, only two were in homes that cost more than $1 million.

Prior to hooking up with Dream Theater Colorado about a year ago, Poehlmann worked with one of the company’s competitors. Poehlmann said he likes working with Dream Theater Colorado because of the professional manner in which the business operates.

“We use them exclusively, unless a home owner already has a company for that,” he said.

Poehlmann said Dream Theater Colorado did about a dozen jobs with him this year and estimates that it will double next year.

With continuing education and rising demand, Dream Theater Colorado is set up to continue its strong growth in the region.

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