The Dekker Centre for the Performing Arts. (file photo/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

COVID-19 precautions

Dekker Centre looking for survey feedback on reopening plans

Aug 13, 2020 | 5:32 PM

People will have a chance to offer their input on what the Dekker Centre for the Performing Arts might look like whenever it is ready to reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The province announced previously performing venues were included in the Reopen Saskatchewan Plan for phase four effective July 6. The Dekker Centre does not have a set date for reopening, although management expects it will be in the fall.

The survey is available on the North Battleford theatre’s Facebook page. Completed survey submissions will be accepted until midnight Aug. 13. Those who complete the survey will be entered for a chance to win one of 10 $10 gift certificates for the Beaver Grill Restaurant.

The Dekker Centre board will review reopening plans and assess the feedback from the survey responses.

“We will begin to develop policies that we will have in place, based on what the survey results tell us,” general manager Kali Weber said.

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The theatre is looking for information from community members to ensure it is prepared to safely return to host live performances amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are just trying to gauge our community’s readiness to come back to arts and culture, specifically to our building because we do have a large capacity,” Weber said. “We have done a lot of research about what we need to do to hold a show safely.”

Weber said the theatre would need to follow the guidelines set by the province based on the recommendations of Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer. That would mean the venue would be restricted to up to 30 per cent of its normal capacity, up to a maximum of 150 people. For the Dekker Centre, based on its venue capacity, the facility could safely accommodate about 110 people who would need to be seated in a socially distanced manner.

Management is mainly trying to determine whether people would be comfortable enough to attend if the theatre started hosting events again in the fall. The survey seeks to obtain more specific information about how attendees would feel about providing information for contact tracing, and also possibly wearing masks in the venue.

“We want to gauge how comfortable our community is with those two [issues],” Weber said.

The theatre received over 285 survey responses so far.

“That is a large number of people that have participated in the survey, so I feel like we are getting a look at how our community feels from a variety of different age groups which is nice,” Weber said. “We will as a group begin to look at the survey results next week. Then, we will make some bigger decisions about re-opening, and hopefully hosting events again.”

Weber added it was exciting to learn about a possible reopening.

“I do feel quite positive about it,” Weber said. “If we can start programming some shows for presentation it will be Saskatchewan-based artists. So we will have for the next little while a pretty local flair within our own province, which is really nice.”

—

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow