Tauranga's Baycourt Community and Arts Centre to start phase one of reopening

Baycourt manager James Wilson. Photo / File

The Baycourt Community and Arts Centre will enter its first phase of reopening next week.

At Covid Alert Level 1, Baycourt can begin progressively reopening aspects of the Tauranga venue, starting with its box office.

This will open Mondays to Fridays from 10am to 4pm, from Monday.

The first live event to be hosted will be Tauranga Musica and Pure Print's concert The Kugels on June 21.

"It's a bit surreal to think the Baycourt box office will reopen exactly 82 days after New Zealand went into lockdown," Baycourt manager James Wilson said.

"To say we have missed hosting our Tauranga Moana community at Baycourt is a massive understatement. People are the heart and soul of Baycourt, and we simply cannot wait to welcome everyone back soon."

Based on results of an online survey conducted in May, there was a desire amongst many in the community for Baycourt to reopen.

The survey aimed to give the Baycourt leadership team an insight into how the community was feeling about returning to venue, as well as provide people with an opportunity to share any concerns they may have about coming back.

More than 400 people completed the survey, with an overwhelming 81 percent of respondents saying that when Baycourt eventually reopens they had no concerns about returning to the venue for live events.

Of the 19 per cent of respondents who said they did have concerns, the most common themes related to hygiene practices of audience members and staff, cleaning of high traffic areas and touch points, the ability for people to maintain social distancing, and the possibility of people visiting Baycourt when they are sick.

New measures included installing new sanitising stations, instituting contactless payment and ticket entry to the venue, plus increasing the frequency of cleaning, especially in high traffic areas.

Baycourt would be adopting a new voluntary code of compliance, dubbed the Covid Code, that was developed in partnership by numerous event industry representative bodies specifically for the Aotearoa event sector.

"By adopting this code we're saying to our Tauranga Moana community that we will stay up to date with Ministry of Health guidance on the response to COVID-19, implement best practice to maintain a high standard of hygiene, and will enable our visitors to maintain their own record for the purposes of contact tracing."

The Covid-19 outbreak wreaked havoc on Baycourt's events diary, with many local, national and international companies and groups being forced to either postpone or cancel their shows.

However, the immediate future was looking "quite promising", Wilson said.

"More and more shows are being added as the days pass, so while it may take a while for our What's On calendar to return to the level that a lot of people accustomed too."