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Confirmed: Cinemas Can Reopen from 13 July & You Can Sit Together with 4 Other People

2020-07-03 , 9:50 pm

Earlier today, this went viral:

That bucket of popcorn has been crying repeatedly on Facebook, so when it said something like that, it must be true.

Then his love rival posted the same thing:

People who’ve watched everything in Netflix are cheering, because it’s certainly not #fakenews: cinemas are reopening on 13 July 2020.

And finally, it’s official: IMDA has released a statement to confirm that cinemas can reopen from 13 July 2020. According to—

Wait, hold your cats. Other than the fact that there aren’t any new movies in cinemas now, there are now new safe management measures in place. In fact, there’s a specific guideline solely for cinema operators.

For a start, you can sit together with your friends and family members…up to the magical number of five per group.

The other group must be one metre away from you.

Pretty sure I’m not the only one who’s cheering with this arrangement. No more fighting for the armrest with a stranger!

Secondly, you need to have your mask on when you’re in the cinema at all times—

Reader Bao: It’s quite tough squeezing popcorns through the mask

—unless you’re eating or drinking. After that, you’re supposed to put your mask back on.

I know what you’re thinking: what if you’re like BuffLord95 who needs to chew on something throughout the entire Avengers: Endgame? That’s pretty much a grey area with fifty shades.

You can still buy your tickets on-site, but are encouraged to buy them online. Don’t be a dinosaur and contribute to the long queue lah.

There must also be a limit of 50 patrons per cinema hall, but without Avengers, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.

Outdoor movie screening is still not allowed, though.

Here’s a nifty infographic done by IMDA:

While this is a guideline by the authorities, do note that you’d have to check with your favourite cinema operator on how it’s implemented.

For example, according to Golden Village’s website, they’ve configured their seats to groups of 2 to 3 even when the limit is 5, so you’d have to approach the staff on site to buy for a group of 5—if it’s available, of course.

Which leads to the next question: got movies meh?

Well, yes.

A check on Golden Village website shows you can start buying tickets for a whopping 22 movies.

The only problem is that many of them are older movies.

There are a few new releases, though, like the highly anticipated Train To Busan: Peninsula and…erm, The Bridge Curse (???).

But let’s not complain lah; at least we can finally have hot popcorn again.

In case you’ve completely forgotten, cinemas were closed since 27 March—before the Circuit Breaker even started. Back then, they thought they can reopen on 1 May 2020, but as you probably know by now, the Circuit Breaker has a short circuit and we were all still staying at home on 1 May 2020.

Confirmed: Cinemas Can Reopen from 13 July & You Can Sit Together with 4 Other People

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