Plan B restrictions for England announced

The government has announced its Plan B measures, which include mandatory masks, Covid passes for unseated venues of more than 500 capacity and work from home guidance.  

Jon Morgan, Theatres Trust Director responds:

The new work from home advice is understandable in light of rising Covid-19 cases and the new Omicron variant, however it will have a big impact on the willingness of people to travel and go to theatres over Christmas.

This will have a knock on effect on theatres’ viability at a vital time of year for the industry and Christmas shows that are just emerging from the significant loss of revenue in 2020 and early 2021.

Theatres have put in place fully risk assessed precautions to ensure their productions and audiences are safe, and we hope that the promising audience trends we have seen over the late summer and early autumn can continue but new work from home guidance puts this at risk. 

We hope the remaining Culture Recovery Fund money can be targeted swiftly to help theatres through this difficult period.

Further details can be found on the Gov website.

Photo credit: Photo by Nelly Antoniadou on Unsplash