You may have seen the new government guidance for theatres which states they are now able to reopen with social distancing and other Covid secure measures in place.
We welcome this news and have been working hard to get our venues ready to reopen safely.
Since we have been operating as a Food Hub for the last 5 months, all safety precautions have been in place since March at Marine Hall. We are very proud to have been able to transform our Fleetwood Theatre, which became the central food distribution centre for Wyre, working in partnership with the Fleetwood Together Food Bank who also relocated to the venue.
Between April and mid-August around 19,324 people were provided with food parcels, delivered from Marine Hall to households across Wyre. We are grateful to our staff, all the volunteers, drivers, food suppliers and community groups who helped make this happen.
Over the last few weeks, since the Food Bank moved out, we have been busy deep cleaning the building and getting ready for reopening to the public, safely.
On 26 August, we hosted our first ‘post lockdown’ wedding ceremony in our beautiful Ballroom.
We also launched our newly enhanced Wyre Lounge and Beach Bar on Saturday and Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend.
We have a number of other events planned over the next few months, including some recordings without an audience and some small outdoor performances on the Saturday of The Fleetwood Folk and Blues Festival, which, apart from this event has had to go mostly virtual this year.
Most of our larger shows and events which were booked into the venue have moved on into next year and we are in discussions with other customers about whether we can accommodate their event with social distancing in place.
Our smaller Theatre, Thornton Little Theatre will be used by the NHS for flu jabs in September and October this year. We are talking to other hirers there about the possibility of relocating their shows to Marine Hall when it is available, where we can more easily put social distancing in place, with similar numbers to the usual capacity at the Little Theatre.
Lynne Bowen portfolio holder for Leisure, Health and Community Engagement at Wyre Council says “We are looking forward to welcoming customers back to our theatre venues soon. Marine Hall has proved itself as a tremendous community asset over the last few months and the theatre has many loyal customers who we know will support it during these difficult times.”
We are fortunate to have flexible, multi-purpose venues which can be set up appropriately dependant on the specific needs of individual events.
Please look out for more updates on our website and social media pages.
We look forward to welcoming you back soon.