Premier Exhibitions


Premier Exhibitions Inc is an Atlanta, Georgia-based company that organizes travelling exhibitions. As of January 2019, 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 and BODIES... The Exhibition in which it displays cadavers arranged in lifelike poses via plastination from the Dalian Medical University in China. 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.
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: The Exhibition" and "The Discovery of King Tut." On June 14, 2016, Premier Exhibitions filed for Chapter 11.
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 . 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. Oceanographer Robert Ballard told the news media that he favored this bid since it would ensure that the memorabilia would be permanently displayed in Belfast and in Greenwich. A decision as to the outcome was to be made by Paul M. Glenn, a United States district court judge in Jacksonville, Florida.

History

RMS Titanic Inc.

RMS Titanic Founder G. Michael Harris put the first Salvage Operation of the RMS Titanic in October 1986. The first Titanic expedition began in July 1987 and was financed by Titanic Ventures Limited Partnership, George Tulloch, Connecticut, and Oceanic Research & Exploration, G. Michael Harris, Florida. These co-partners led a $6 million expedition to the ship, and recovered artifacts beneath the surface of the North Atlantic. In order to recover these artifacts, George Tulloch, G. Michael 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, 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 SOST. In 1994 it won a Virginia court order to get salvor-in-possession rights to the ship.
Tulloch had built up the largest BMW dealership in the United States and had an American financial background. In 1992, the company, through a reverse merger, formed into RMS Titanic Inc. Tulloch co-lead operations on the Titanic in 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1998 along with G. Michael Harris who served on the Board of Directors as well as all aspects of the companies exhibition touring business. G. Michael Harris along with his team of experts also designed the traveling as well as the permanent Titanic Exhibitions worldwide.
G. Michael Harris opened the first permanent Titanic exhibition on April 10, 1999; it is the largest Titanic exhibition in the world, located in Orlando, Florida; he sold it to Premier Exhibitions in 2012. G. Michael Harris was the Expedition Leader in the summer of 2000 with over 120 hours on the wreck of the RMS Titanic and made eleven dives in the Russian Deep Diving Submersible MIR1 & MIR2. Expedition 2000 included the last manned salvage dives on the RMS Titanic but was the most successful from an artifact recovery operations standpoint. Mr. Harris also found some perfume bottles from the Titanic on August 2, 2000 in the Mir2 Russian Submersible along with Mr. Harris' 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 continue to be involved in litigation over the matter.

1999 takeover

In 1999 founder G. Michael Harris, Arnie Geller and music promoter Joseph B. Marsh led a takeover and ousting of Tulloch.
Arnie Geller was installed as President and CEO of the company and G. Michael Harris was installed as Chief Operating Officer as well as Secretary of the Corporation RMS Titanic, Inc. G. Michael Harris and Arnold Geller fired all officers and Directors and were the only two remaining Directors of the Company. Mr. John Joslyn was a small shareholder of RMST and took part in the Takeover of the Company in 1999.

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 is now the primary money maker for the firm with presenting 19 separate human anatomy exhibitions at 33 venues while the Titanic is on exhibit at 15 locations in 2009.
In 2009 the company reported that 19% of its revenue comes 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

2009

In 2009 its other exhibits include "Dialog in the Dark" in which visitors pass through an exhibit totally without light. and "Star Trek: The Exhibition".

2016

After facing legal challenges and the early closure of its "Saturday Night Live" exhibition, Premier filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2016.

2018 bankruptcy

RMS Titanic Inc. has been the wreck's legal salvager since 1994. Starting in 2009 they changed their approach to that of closer co-operation with Titanic preservation and regulatory bodies, an approach in place around 2012.
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, 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. 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 artefacts, 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".