Fortress Seating appoints Directly AV for international growth

Fortress Seating has appointed Directly AV to develop its international sales and marketing, with the move reported on 19 October 2026. The manufacturer, which makes handcrafted seating in La Verne, California, has more than 70 years of history and wants overseas integrators to consider its furniture for living spaces as well as dedicated cinemas.

What happened

Directly AV’s remit covers international market development, dealer and distributor relationships, and the way Fortress presents its capabilities outside North America. The appointment gives those activities a dedicated resource, rather than announcing a new seating range or a change to the company’s manufacturing base.

The partnership followed discussions at CEDIA Expo in Denver between Directly AV founder and managing director Mike Beatty, Fortress president Gabi Wolper and the manufacturer’s wider team. Their focus was the next stage of international development for a business that already has relationships in overseas markets.

Fortress says it will work with existing partners in individual countries and territories while exploring opportunities elsewhere. This is therefore an expansion and relationship-development brief, not an announced replacement of its international distribution network. No country-by-country changes have been detailed.

A central part of the assignment is to make the breadth of Fortress’s manufacturing better understood. Beyond home cinema seating, its output includes sofas, sectionals, loungers, individual chairs and bespoke furniture for luxury residential projects. Those categories potentially bring the company into specifications led jointly by interior designers and technology integrators, rather than solely by a cinema specialist.

The background

Seating occupies an unusually consequential position in a home cinema project: it is furniture, but its dimensions and placement also influence the technical design. The location of listeners helps determine speaker geometry, while seat height and row spacing affect sightlines. A furniture decision made late can therefore require more than a change to the interior scheme.

The viewing position also needs to be considered alongside screen size and projection layout. Developments such as lens shift in XGIMI’s Horizon 30 projectors give installers more positioning flexibility, but they do not remove the need to coordinate the screen, projector and seating plan. This is why a seating manufacturer’s relationship with the custom installation channel has practical value beyond sales access.

Moving into a media room changes the brief. A dedicated cinema can organise the room around a fixed viewing direction; a shared living space may need to accommodate conversation, circulation and everyday use as well as film viewing. Sofas and sectional arrangements give a supplier a different role in that process, provided their dimensions and configuration suit the intended AV layout.

That distinction explains the commercial significance of Fortress’s wider portfolio. A dealer familiar with its cinema chairs may not automatically bring it into a living-room project. Directly AV’s task includes addressing that awareness gap, so the manufacturer can be considered earlier and across more rooms within a residence.

For international projects, access to manufacturing is only one part of the specification process. Designers and integrators also need clear routes for obtaining drawings, confirming finishes and resolving questions before orders are placed. The announcement does not introduce new procedures for those tasks, but they are tangible areas against which closer dealer engagement can eventually be assessed.

What people are saying

Wolper presents the appointment as a way to build on longstanding relationships rather than start again. He says Fortress has known Beatty for many years and values his understanding of both the company and the international custom installation market. His stated priorities include making Fortress easier for dealers to work with and improving their opportunity to specify and sell its products.

Beatty’s emphasis is on the difference between Fortress’s reputation and the full scope of its manufacturing. He regards its recognition in home theatre seating as a strong foundation, but believes the international dealer community needs a clearer understanding of what else the company can produce. Directly AV intends to combine that communication work with closer engagement with integrators.

For an integrator, the useful test will be whether the relationship improves access to project-specific information. A broader catalogue is not, on its own, a simpler specification process: bespoke work requires agreement over dimensions, appearance and responsibilities. The companies have described the direction of travel, but have not published service commitments or response targets.

Interior designers are likely to read the move through a different lens: whether a supplier associated with technical rooms can contribute appropriately to the rest of a home. The same coordination challenge appears in architectural audio designed to disappear into interiors. Furniture and AV need a shared room brief, even when the technology is intended to remain visually unobtrusive.

What happens next

The announced work centres on developing dealer and distribution relationships, refining international positioning and finding additional markets. Neither company has identified a first target territory, a timetable for expansion or a numerical growth objective. There is consequently no basis yet for predicting where the appointment will produce new local representation.

For UK specifiers, the immediate unanswered questions are operational. The announcement does not set out new UK ordering arrangements, pricing, delivery commitments or after-sales provisions. A project team should confirm those details through the relevant partner rather than assume that an international sales appointment changes existing commercial terms.

Bespoke residential work also needs an agreed approval sequence. Before committing a room layout, an integrator should establish which furniture dimensions are final, who signs off the drawings and when subsequent changes would affect the order. Those are general project safeguards, not newly announced Fortress policies, and become particularly important when several design disciplines share responsibility.

The broader product message will need to distinguish capabilities from project suitability. Manufacturing sofas, loungers and custom chairs establishes the scope of the offer; choosing one for a particular residence still requires assessment of access, room use and the interior specification. Directly AV’s contribution will be more useful if awareness is accompanied by the information needed to make those decisions.

Existing dealers will also want clarity about how enquiries and opportunities are handled as the international network develops. Fortress’s commitment to working with established partners provides an indication of intent, but the announcement leaves the mechanics of collaboration unstated. Clear responsibilities would help prevent uncertainty when a designer, integrator and distributor are all involved in the same commission.

Why this matters

For owners and project teams, the significance is the prospect of a more accessible bespoke furniture supplier at the intersection of interiors and residential AV. Fortress’s appointment of Directly AV could widen the options considered before a room’s technical and aesthetic decisions become fixed. Its value will ultimately be demonstrated through specification support and dependable local relationships, rather than the breadth of the international growth ambition alone.