The Novel Corona Virus - COVID 19 had almost got the whole world under shutdown mode for the past few months and all places. Even now, the situation looks so bad but all the governments have relaxed the lockdown rules in order to save their economy. Having said that, places where the public gather in huge numbers are still kept shut down to prevent the virus from spreading. Theatre associations are doing their bit to resolve this issue, they have been in touch with the government to reopen all the theatres with a proper preventive measure. Only when shooting resumes full-fledged and theatres are allowed to open, we can see more people get employed. It is been over 100 days since all the theatres across the country were asked to shut. Even when all the other industries have been given permission to resume work, theatre industry alone has not been allowed to screen movies. Though theatres have all been shut, all theatres owners have been incurring a loss of around 10 lakhs per month which includes wages for staffs and their maintenance. Some of the theatres across the country have already closed business while some theatre owners still playing the waiting game on when to shut shop.  

Today, a news report states that the theatre association of Tamil Nadu is planning to reopen all theatres by the 1st of August. It is reported that theatre owners have discussed all possible options to resume theatre business keeping the safety of people in mind. When we got in touch with Vettri Theatres owner Rakesh Gowthaman to get a clarity on this, he said "This might just be a preliminary consultation meeting to place a request for reopening theatres. There is no confirmed directive from any authorities regarding the reopening of theatres. The government should first release the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for the theatres to be prepared for reopening. After this, it would take the theatres about 2-3 weeks to be fully prepared and to align with the guidelines given by the government. Also, if any specific seating arrangement is mentioned by the government with regards to social distancing, then the ticketing software would have to be modified accordingly and that would also take some time." Thus, talks might just be initiating for the reopening of theatres but for the theatres to actually begin functioning, there is still a long way to go.”