Tamworth's live event venues could be in for a white-knuckle wait for further loosening of social distancing restrictions, with the Capitol Theatre yesterday opening the box office for shows that under current rules would not make their money back.
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Tickets for Magic Beach, set to open on the last day of August, are on sale from yesterday.
Entertainment Venues Manager Peter Ross said the show won't be financially viable without at least a rollback of restrictions limiting venues to one person per four square metres.
"It's not currently viable for the shows that we have slated from September onwards.
"It roughly gives us eight weeks that those restrictions will be lifted ideally to no distancing. But we could certainly look at most of them going ahead under a 2-square-metre rule."
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He acknowledged it was an optimistic schedule.
"Isn't this whole time a white-knuckle ride?" he said.
"You've only got to look out at the world you've got football matches going back in, you've got crowds coming in and out of venues, Bunnings, Coles and other shops.
"People are congregating and of course observing hygiene and distancing things. Certainly in theatres we've got all that in place.
"When you sit in a theatre you sit and face the stage, you don't face each other."
Speaking on Wednesday morning, he said "lots of people" had already got in contact about booking tickets.
"Nothing beats live entertainment," he said.
But just next door Tamworth's Forum 6 cinemas have not yet scheduled the roll-out of the red carpet.
Cinemas were permitted to open from July 1, but Cinema manager Grant Lee said the Forum Cinemas don't yet have a date to reopen, and doesn't know if they will do so in July.
They too will also have to wait for at least a doubling of the limit of one person for every four square metres of floorspace.
When they do open they want to make sure they're not just running the classics, he said.
Most blockbusters are designed to open internationally simultaneous, but with the mega-markets of the US and China both losing thousands of citizens a day to COVID-19 Hollywood has put films scheduled to be released in July, like Mulan and Tenet, on hold.
"We're trying to have something that is new plus older stuff, we're trying to get a mixture," he said.
"There might be some movies that have opened in Australia or any the world already that aren't as big, we could have some of those and play some of those pre-COVID items.
"But we really need a good mixture. I think that will work better."
Magic Beach would be the first show since the March national coronavirus lockdown.
Capitol Theatre manager Peter Ross said the venue had yesterday rolled over memberships for 2020 into the next year. All going well, members should get the end of 2020 plus all of 2021; 16 months for the price of 12.
When it opens Magic Beach will be a "visually beautiful" show about a kid growing up on a family beach holiday aimed at the whole family.
"Magic Beach is part of what we call our education and family series," he said.
"I'm a big believer in generational gathering at the theatre. Grandma, parents and children all coming out for that shared experience."