Businesses count the cost of city centre weekend power cut

An awards ceremony at Perth Theatre was one of the casualties of a power cut which hit the city centre.

However, organisers of the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland were undaunted and resumed the event after a brief unscheduled interval.

A theatre spokesperson said: “In true showbiz style, the show went on with the audience and presenters gathering in Perth Theatre’s foyer for the short duration of the power cut.

“When power was restored, the ceremony continued in the auditorium.”

Other venues were not so lucky, with Perth Playhouse cinema reporting losses running into thousands of pounds as a result of the Sunday afternoon outage. The cinema said it lost more than £5,500 in ticket sales alone when projectors failed to work during the screening of a live opera.

It’s understood more than 50 customers were at Perth Playhouse at the time.

Catherine Moran, the cinema’s general manager, said: “We lost more than £5,500 on ticket sales alone and that’s not including the food and drink customers wanting refunds.

“We ran out of free tickets and couldn’t refund the food since the tills were off so we were dealing with grumpy customers which is understandable.

“The staff handled it very well and were very professional.”

The power cut also affected traffic lights in Kinnoull Street, with the nearby Specsavers also affected.

A spokesperson for SSE said: “Around 491 customers were affected by a fault in Perth city centre at 4.30pm on Sunday.

“Engineers were very quickly on site and all supplies were restored by 5.45pm.”