Sydney festival and theatre update
New Covid cases and tightened restrictions for Sydney come at a nerve-racking time for the organisers of the Sydney festival, due to open on 6 January.
The festival’s outdoor Headland Stage at Barangaroo hopes to host up to 1,500 socially distanced guests for every performance.
The Sydney festival artistic director, Wesley Enoch, is eyeing the rise in cases, saying “it’s useful not to panic”.
Enoch told Guardian Australia:
We’ve been training for this all year … every time something shifts or changes, we’ve got something ready to go.
We have exemptions from the health orders because it’s a restricted outdoor venue with seats … It’s very different from having a large group of people mingling at a barbecue.
I have faith that contact tracing is good and when things break out the state gets onto it.
The stage – which is set to host performances including The [Uncertain] Four Seasons, Bangarra Dance Theatre’s landmark retrospective Spirit and Paul Mac’s The Rise and Fall of Saint George – plans to operate under social distancing guidelines.
Also watching the NSW Covid figures closely is the Sydney Opera House, whose production of Rent is due to open on Saturday 2 January to around 400 people – or 75% of the drama theatre capacity.
Unlike other major theatre venues in Sydney, masks are still not mandatory at the Sydney Opera House but are strongly recommended.
Opera Australia’s production of The Merry Widow opens at the Sydney Opera House on 5 January. The production is also proceeding under Sydney Opera House guidelines, with “checkerboard”-style seating.
Opera Australia’s artistic director, Lyndon Terracini, told Guardian Australia:
Opera Australia will be the only opera company in the world performing to a live audience.
What’s happening in the rest of the world, particularly in Europe, is shocking. But we have to be confident. We’ve been out of the Opera House for 10 months, that’s a long time.
At time of writing, Disney’s Frozen is going ahead with all scheduled performances, as is Pippin at the Lyric Theatre and Magic Mike Live in the Entertainment Quarter.
Belvoir’s My Brilliant Career is also playing as advertised. All are playing with the potential for at least 75% houses.
Patrons of Westpac OpenAir Cinema in Sydney have been advised to get tested; the cinema’s program is currently suspended.
Updated
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Continuing a series of defence announcements this week, the federal government says it will buy two more P-8A Poseidon surveillance and response aircraft.
This acquisition will bring the total fleet size to 14.
The defence minister, Linda Reynolds, said the additional Poseidon aircraft would boost the Royal Australian Air Force’s maritime patrol capability and be purchased through an existing program with the US Navy.
She said it was part of the $270bn in defence capability spending over the next decade, as foreshadowed in the defence update earlier this year.
Reynolds said in a statement:
The Poseidon is a proven capability that will conduct tasks including anti-submarine warfare, maritime and overland intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and support to search and rescue missions.
These additional aircraft will enhance Air Force’s flexibility to support multiple operations and will play an important role in ensuring Australia’s maritime region is secure for generations to come.”
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A spokesman for the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has said that the Brisbane cricket Test match will still go ahead at this point, despite Sydney’s latest uptick in cases.
However, that is still dependent on the Queensland chief health officer, and on the players sticking to their Covid bubbles.
The Australian and Indian cricket teams are scheduled to play in Sydney from 7 January, and then travel to Queensland to play at the Gabba from 15 January.
The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, and NSW chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, said today it was still safe to host the Sydney Test match, despite the state recording 18 new cases, and a second “Croydon cluster” in the inner west.
That news only emerged an hour ago, at 11am, and the Queensland chief health officer, Dr Jeanette Young, has not yet commented.
Yesterday, Young said that the players, support staff and media could still travel up from Sydney to Brisbane, provided they stuck to Covid bubbles put in place by Cricket Australia. The border to NSW is ordinarily closed.
A spokesman for Palaszczuk told Guardian Australia that until Young said otherwise, “the game’s on”.
Ss long as Cricket Australia comply with the bubble rules, they are free to come up to Brisbane,” he said. “The bubble situation has served us well for the NRL and AFL.”
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Sydney Cricket Ground cricket Test safe, says premier, with masks to be handed out to spectators
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian believes the Sydney cricket Test can take place safely, with authorities set to hand out free masks to thousands of attendees.
She said this is because the 50% seating capacity, and the fact the event is outdoors, mean the transmission risk is low.
Berejiklian said:
The best health advice tells us, outdoor ticketed seated events are safer than household gatherings, and that’s just a fact.”
Chief health officer Kerry Chant said:
We will be handing out masks on public transport going into the SCG, and advising people to wear masks when they are not physically at their seat.
We also are asking people to ensure that they recognise around screaming and chanting, particularly when they are not in their fixed location. But 50% occupancy ensures spacing and if people are staying in a fixed location.
The things we get concerned about in public health, particularly when lots of different people are coming together, and that’s why it’s important to make sure that the staggered ingress and egress.
Many of our large venues actually have quite sophisticated movements where people are designated to come in particular gates and therefore avoid that crossover.”
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Kerry Chant is asked if it is still safe for the Sydney Cricket Ground to host the upcoming test.
On Tuesday night, Cricket Australia confirmed Sydney would host it.
Chant said:
We have certainly taken some additional steps to make sure that public transport masks are used, we’re looking at some of aspects of the mixing, but seated outdoor poses less risk than people perhaps gathering in households to look at the test.
We have got faith in the transport plan and the work that the Sydney Cricket Ground has done but we are looking over the plans as we speak to ensure that we can strengthen all elements.
We’re urging anyone who is unwell, do not attend. Check before you go to that test.”
Updated
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Gladys Berejiklian is asked if the growth in cases and emergence of the Croydon cluster (which is not linked to the northern beaches) are a sign her decision to ease restrictions in the northern beaches over Christmas was a mistake.
She said:
What this demonstrates to us is during a pandemic, you have to take decisions based on the science and the data and that’s exactly what we have done at every step of the way, and that’s exactly what we will continue to do.
It’s always a balancing act of the health risk versus what restrictions you impose on the community and every decision we have taken in New South Wales has been based on the health advice.
Whenever the health advice changes and, in fact, Dr Chant can attest, we respond very quickly.
We can put all the restrictions we like in place, but if people choose not to do the right thing or exercise good common sense, that is a huge risk to all of us and that’s unfortunately sometimes what happens.”
Updated
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