‘Making ends meet’: how Australia’s cinemas and theatres will tackle the four-square-metre rule

Owners and staff at entertainment venues are ‘very enthusiastic’ to reopen but social distancing presents challenges.

National cabinet has agreed to replace limits on the number of attendees at non-essential indoor gatherings with the “one person per four square metres” rule, a move designed to help reopen larger entertainment venues such as cinemas and theatres.

New South Wales has announced it will bring in the change on 1 July, along with a 25% attendance limit on venues with 40,000 seats or less.

The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, has said that from 22 June restrictions will ease somewhat in the state to allow indoor cinemas, concert venues, theatres and auditoriums to reopen for the first time in months to 50 seated patrons per enclosed space, the four-square-metre rule withstanding.