Arts boost as Chapter set to open on Tuesday
ONE of Wales’ best-loved arts centres is finally set to reopen.
Cardiff arts space Chapter has announced it will open again to visitors next week.
The arts space, gallery, cafe and cinema in Canton has been closed throughout the coronavirus crisis.
And, as we reported last week, initial plans to announce its reopening had to be pushed back when Cardiff was put into local lockdown.
But bosses at the centre announced yesterday that it would be reopening on Tuesday at 9am.
Sharing the news online, the centre said it would be implementing new safety measures to ensure visitors were comfortable. These will include hand sanitising stations, personal protective equipment for staff, reduced capacity and separate entrance and exit points.
The centre’s cafe and bar will be table service only with contactless payment, and must be booked online in advance.
The gallery exhibitions will be free with no booking required, but visitors to the cinema will need to book in advance.
Chapter CEO Andy Eagle told the Echo: “It’s a huge relief to announce our reopening, but it also shows the demand that is there from our audience and from the creative communities that we serve. “So it’s relief, but also out of necessity. “We’ve taken a while to reopen, because we wanted to make sure we do it properly, have the time to train our staff on the new measures properly and watch what others were doing well too.
“It’s a big space, there is a lot happening in Chapter between our cafe, gallery space, workshop events and cinema. We wanted to reopen as a whole, rather than only having some things up and running.”
The centre said it had been able to make some improvements to the building while closed, including a bar, laptop zone for those wishing to work and allgender toilets on the ground floor.
“We were going to reopen at the beginning of October, but then obviously with the Cardiff lockdown happening, we just felt it was the wrong thing to do given the situation,” Mr Eagle said.
“Now we feel is a good time to reopen, with the appropriate measures in place. We will give it our best shot.
“[A national lockdown] is out of our control. Obviously if stricter measures do come in, we’ll respond to that as and when it happens.”
Chapter shut in March when the UK went into a national lockdown and took the decision not to reopen its cafe when given the go-ahead.
In the same month, bosses said its future was “under threat” and warned the venue may not make it to its 50th birthday and more than 100 jobs could be lost.
It was revealed the centre was losing around £250,000 in earned income every month during the pandemic. But the Save Chapter campaign raised more than £45,000 and brought it “back from the brink of insolvency”.