National cabinet has agreed to replace limits on the number of attendees at non-essential indoor gatherings with the “one person per four square metres” rule, a move designed to help reopen larger entertainment venues such as cinemas and theatres.
New South Wales has announced it will bring in the change on 1 July, along with a 25% attendance limit on venues with 40,000 seats or less.
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, has said that from 22 June restrictions will ease somewhat in the state to allow indoor cinemas, concert venues, theatres and auditoriums to reopen for the first time in months to 50 seated patrons per enclosed space, the four-square-metre rule withstanding.
Cinema Nova, an independent arthouse theatre in Melbourne’s Lygon Street, is one such venue. The chief executive, Kristian Connelly, said the theatre would only be able to admit about one-third of the patrons it normally would in each cinema.
“All the evidence seems to point towards the fact that we are looking at a lot of people being very enthusiastic to return,” Connelly said.
Cinema Nova sold more than 1,300 choc-tops during two takeaway sales events run during lockdown, and has been “very encouraged at how quickly tickets are going” for the 22 June reopening.
But reopening a cinema is not as easy as it was pre-coronavirus.
In addition to the increased hygiene and social distancing requirements, cinema owner Eddie Tamir says Australian venues have to deal with the problem of Hollywood studios withholding new titles until more cinemas reopen worldwide.
Tamir, the co-owner of Moving Story Entertainment, runs the Classic, the Lido and the Cameo cinemas in Melbourne, and the Ritz in Sydney, which are set to reopen in June and July.
Even though the venues play an eclectic mix of blockbusters and arthouse films, Tamir says “the Hollywood machine is important to all cinemas”.
“There is a huge traffic jam of films searching for ‘healthy dates’ and we just hope that the world health situation improves. Just because Australia and New Zealand are fine, that isn’t that relevant to the major studio system who, for various reasons of scale and commerciality, want to release everywhere in the world at the same time to reach that critical mass,” he said.
Connelly, of Cinema Nova, adds that owners are also flying blind when it comes to how many screens to dedicate to each film they show, a decision normally based on ticket sales from the previous weekend. “Right now we are not working on that knowledge, it’s just gut instinct,” he said.
While cinema chains such as Event Cinemas and Palace Verona also have plans to open, the incoming four-square-metre rule will prevent some smaller venues from admitting enough patrons to make reopening financially viable.
Adam Cousins, the co-owner of Mount Vic Flicks, a single-screen cinema in the Blue Mountains in NSW, said “we have a relative short period each week in which we make most of our income. The four-square-metre rule restricts us to around 20% capacity, which isn’t quite enough for those few sessions to cover us.”
As an arthouse-leaning cinema, Cousins said it would have to reconsider its programming if it reopened as “we like to give independents and Aussie films more of a chance, understanding that they’re not always going to be huge earners for us and may even run at a loss, which is OK when other films that week are filling the cinema.
“With reduced sessions (for extra cleaning time) and severely limited capacity, we would unfortunately not be in a position to show the range of films we normally enjoy.”
Distancing rules have similarly made it financially impossible for many Australian theatre companies and live-music venues to reopen.
Under the four square metre rule, the Red Rattler in Sydney’s inner west would only be able to host up to 30 people in their performance space, making it impossible for performers to recoup the costs of running and event and financially unviable for the venue to reopen.
Other venues have pivoted, with many theatres moving to screening live and recorded performances online.
The Vanguard, a live-music venue in Sydney’s Newtown, reopened two weeks ago, with sit-down dinners and bands playing two sets for groups of 50. With one of its staff members qualifying for jobkeeper, and the owner, Arash Nabavi, working as an orthopaedic surgeon by day, the venue is “making ends meet”.
Sydney’s Golden Age Cinema, part of an industry that the chief executive, Barrie Barton, says relies on “bums on seats and advertising revenue”, has added extra strings, including online screening sessions and home delivery drinks.
Despite the uncertainties that lie ahead, cinema owner Eddie Tamir said “the spirit of always being open to the public is the overriding driver for us”.
“You know, we always remained optimistic [during the lockdown]. Give and take some time, we knew that that spirit of shared experience, and the natural kind of urge of human beings to share experience, would prevail, and we would open successfully.”
