Venues welcome back regulars
The piano is playing and the martinis are shaking in the Lobby Lounge, and Jason Cisneros couldn’t be happier. The director of food and beverage at the Hotel Fairmont Pacific Rim says things are going great since the reopening of the uptown cocktail haven this week.
“It’s nice to see our nostalgic regulars return to the scene and be involved with us again because those loyal people are who make sure we stay in business,” said Cisneros. “We’re lucky to have a really big space so that adhering to the social-distancing rules has been relatively easy. The feel is very similar to what it always was, albeit with very heightened safety protocols.”
That means the 300-seat-capacity space can only accommodate 100 people at present.
All across B.C., businesses are reopening and the artsand-cultural sector is responding to B.C.’s restart plan. If COVID-19 transmission rates remain low or in decline, from now until September will see rapid expansion of museum and gallery openings, theatre productions and gatherings of no more than 50 persons.
Maple Ridge-Mission MLA Bob D’Eith works with Lisa Beare, minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, and welcomes the changes after “a strange couple of months.”
“We knew that creative industries and arts-and-cultural industries were going to be seriously impacted by the (COVID-19) pandemic,” said D’Eith. “So we reached out to all levels of stakeholders to find out what they needed and engaged with each sector as they came up and worked with WorkSafeBC to come up with compliance plans. That’s gone very well, but now the issue is one of consumer confidence building along with what happens moving forward.”
Customer confidence was key to reopening the Hollywood theatres in Surrey and Pitt Meadows, the Rialto cinema in White Rock and the Duncan cinema. Hollywood and Rialto owner Rahim Manji says the checklist to make everyone feel safe is lengthy, but that is what the “new normal” is. Four of the five venues are operating again.
“We ended up using every other row in the theatre instead of a checkerboard seating arrangement so that everyone remains six feet apart whether seated behind you or in front,” said Manji, “We need around 75 per cent capacity to make it worthwhile, which wasn’t going to happen with only 50 people in the entire space. But now that it has been extended to 50 per auditorium, it’s much better.
“We did exit interviews with customers and they were so happy to be out and about, and let us know exactly how it went.”
Tourism Vancouver acting CEO Ted Lee described the impact of the travel sector shutting down in one word: catastrophic.
“Tourism Vancouver promotes our destination in three main ways,” said Lee. “One is obviously travel and tourism, and international visits are a big part of that. But we are also in the world of business events like major meetings and conventions, which involve a lot of people. Since 2010, we have also been promoting this destination as a wonderful place for sports, lifestyle and cultural festival-type events.”
Tourism Vancouver, Tourism Richmond and TIA B.C. (the Tourism Industry Association) formed a task force in early March to tackle the challenges facing the industry. Working with stakeholders and government resulted in formulating some of the plans that have been implemented.
Many arts-and-cultural groups and venues are wondering how to get bums back in the few seats being made available.
“We automatically lost all our capacity to generate any revenue when this happened and we never had an excess of funds to work with,” said Firehall Arts Centre artistic producer Donna Spencer. “Something truly important happens where you are in a space engaging with artists and experiencing it with other people. You can’t do that with a livestream, and I’m wondering if you can do it in a nearempty room.”
She is banking on customer demand for early bird passes to the Firehall Arts Centre’s 2020-21 season now on sale with savings ranging from 10 to 28 per cent. A fall Salon Series kicks the season off, and Spencer is hopeful.
Rio Theatre operator Corinne Lea is less positive about the present reopening and how it will work in a venue that features films, concerts and other live shows. The 50-person cap means she’s operating at 12-per-cent capacity.
“I’m part of a coalition across Canada of venue owners and many of them are very concerned because time is running out for them,” said Lea. “The 50-person cap isn’t economically viable and I think a distinction needs to be made for small-to-medium venues to work just like restaurants with proper social distancing. I could make it work with 25 per cent capacity spread out safely.”
The Canadian Independent Venue Coalition has launched a #SupportCanadianVenues initiative asking for decisive government support.