As the summer weather fades and leaves change, there’s less fun to be had outside. With COVID-19 throwing a wrench in many people’s plans this year, the return of movie theatres provides a nice getaway option for a night. Moosomin's Community Theatre has reopened after being closed since the spring because of COVID-19.
“We’re just working on the COVID-19 stuff more or less,” said committee member Jason Sheppard. “Every second row is closed off and different things like that just to make sure everybody keeps their space.”
If anybody was worried that the COVID-19 restrictions would limit capacity at the theatre to a detrimental extent, Sheppard says not to fret.
“We can have 150 max,” he said. “It’s not going to be like, ‘oh my gosh we can only have 20 people!?’ It’ really not too bad. Just a few changes, but not much.”
“Pretty much 90 per cent of it is making sure people are spaced out and we’re on top of cleaning,” he said. “We just have to monitor people keeping their distance and that the more touched areas are sanitized two or three times a night.
“We just need to be aware of community transfer so if somebody does have it and they come to town we’re doing everything we can.”
As for concessions, people will be able to get anything they would on a regular theatre night, just with some extra spacing between the concessions and the customer.
“We’re still going to do our normal concessions,” he said. “We’ve just got to put a table in front of the concessions so we can keep that six-foot distance between people ordering. We’re still going to offer popcorn, drinks, and chocolate bars like we would in a normal time.”
With most people looking for something to do with Covid-19 impacting regular recreation, Sheppard thinks the theatre is a nice way to get people out to do something this fall.
“It’s going to be pretty much normal just with extra cleaning,” he said. “The thing is around here too people are more relaxed and wanting to go out and do things because there’s not many cases around here. Most people aren’t too worried and 99 per cent of people at the theatre are local anyway.
“The big thing is giving them something to do. People were worried because there’s not much for movies coming out, but there really still is and we’re picking the ones that look good and people will enjoy. Bring in movies and people will come because they want something to do. The main thing is giving them the option with the weather getting colder too.”
