COVID SAFETY MEASURES UPDATE – 10.12.21

Masks: While you are at the John Peel Centre you are required by law to wear a face mask unless you are exempt, or temporarily while you are eating, drinking or dancing. We also ask (unless you are exempt) that you be fully vaccinated or have a negative Covid test in the 48 hours before attending.

Booking Tickets: In an effort to reduce contact and transmission rates we will also be closing our box office for in-person ticket sales from 13.12.21 until further notice. Tickets for all events can still be booked online via www.johnpeelcentre.com

Covid has not gone away, and we want to let you know about some measures we are taking to do our best to make sure everyone has a safe experience visiting us here at the JPC.

In summary, to protect ourselves and the community, this is what we will be asking people to do when they visit the JPC:

• Do a lateral flow test no more than 48 hours before you come
• Don’t come if you’re unwell or you have been in close contact with someone with Covid
• Mask wearing – please see update above dated 10.12.21
• Wash your hands and use the hand gel provided
• Book your tickets in advance, check in and pay by card (including at the bar)
• Respect each other, wherever possible stay socially-distanced (1m+)
  

We understand everyone will have their own feelings about the change in national restrictions and some may feel more nervous than others. We have put the below measures in place following consultation with our staff and volunteers with a view to opening our venue as safely as possible. We respect your personal choices but ask you to adhere to our current policies and we greatly look forward to welcoming you back as soon as you would like to return to the JPC.

The safety of our staff, volunteers, artists, crew, audiences, and participants is of the utmost importance to us and is our number one priority.

The spaces at the JPC will be open for full capacity, therefore, for our new processes and policies to be successful, in keeping people as safe as possible, we need our community and the people who come to events and activities at the JPC to play their part and to adhere to our requirements. Please remember, this is to protect our community. Be kind. Be considerate.

Ways to enjoy a safe visit to the JPC:

1) Under no circumstances, if you are feeling unwell, particularly if you are showing any Covid symptoms, should you come to a performance or activity (even if it is something you really, really, really want to see/do). Similarly, you should not attend if you believe, or have been advised, that you have been in close contact with someone with covid. If you are If you are suffering from Covid symptoms or fear you may be an infection risk and therefore shouldn’t attend, we will offer you a refund on your ticket.

2) Before coming to one of our events, we recommend that you do everything you can to make sure that you personally are not infectious. You can do this by:

Getting vaccinated
We will not, currently, be operating a certification or passport model to enter our events or activities (reasons to not do this at present, include the fact that large numbers of people who have not had the opportunity for both vaccines and it would mean excluding vulnerable people who cannot be vaccinated). However, you, personally, can make sure you aren’t adding to anyone’s risk by keeping your record of immunity up to date, and getting vaccinated when you are able. No one is forcing you to do this. We are just asking you to be kind and thoughtful and do it for the safety of everyone else and for our volunteers and staff.

Taking a PCR/lateral flow test
We will be asking ticket holders to our events to take a lateral flow test before they attend an event at the JPC.

We are also asking our staff and volunteers to take lateral flow tests.

3) We encourage our staff and volunteers to continue to wear masks during our events. We also encourage our customers continue to wear a mask. We have masks available at the box office.

4) To keep everyone safe, we will have clear plastic screens up at Box Office and the bar.

We will also continue to clean the bar and box office contact surfaces regularly.

5) We have a ventilation system installed in our venue which has been inspected prior to opening events. (‘We estimate that this system has a ventilation rate of approximately 4.7 times per hour)

6) We will continue to have hand gel units in the venue, and we ask you to please play your part in keeping the building clean from contact risk by regularly washing your hands and using sanitizer. We will continue to regularly clean high touch areas, and the venue will be cleaned between each event.

7) We will continue to operate a contactless/cards payment system for tickets and at the bar (please contact us in advance if you have any concerns about this) and we encourage you to purchase tickets in advance rather than ‘on the door’ and please check in using the NHS app if you can.

Whilst guidelines are not law, we reserve the right to remove individuals from our venue if they disrespect our staff or customers or go out of their way to create what we feel is an unsafe environment.

We will be reviewing this policy on a monthly basis, and, over time, some policies may change, and we ask that you consider and remain mindful of this when purchasing tickets to events at the JPC. The policy in place at the time of the event is that which will apply, regardless of the policy at the time of purchase. Finally, we would just like to remind you all to please just be mindful of other people over the next few months, while we all get used to coming to events again. Some people will be raring to go, others will still be nervous. Let’s look out for each other as a community. Respect yourself and other people and let’s all play our part in enjoying live events once more – we can’t wait to see you.