Saskatchewan’s largest movie screen, the Kramer IMAX Theatre at the Saskatchewan Science Centre, is set to reopen on Thursday.
The IMAX theatre is the first part of the Science Centre’s phased reopening plan.
Vice President of Operations, Ryan Holota, says it’s exciting to be able to finally welcome people back to the theatre.
“We’re really happy to be able to share that educational entertainment with the people of Saskatchewan again,” said Holota. “As well, we’ve had some staff that haven’t been in the building for a while, so to bring them back in and getting paid again is going to be wonderful as well.”
Holota says the theatre has implemented several safety measures including moving to online-only ticketing, cashless transactions for concessions, revised seating layouts, enhanced cleaning and improvements to guest flow in and out of the theatre.
Guests will also be required to wear masks until they are seated. Once seated, they may remove their mask to enjoy their concession snacks.
With the safety protocols in place, Holota hopes that people will feel comfortable coming back to the theatre.
“We’ll just have to see. We think that we have some compelling films on the calendar, and we hope that people are excited to come and see and see them,” said Holota. “We are in contact with a lot of other movies and giant screen theatres from around the world all the time, and some places have been very, very busy, and other places have not been that busy, so we’ll just have to see how it all works out.”
Holota says that staff are still discussing how to properly reopen the Science Centre fully due to the nature of the interactive, high touch exhibits.
In the meantime, Holota says that coming to the IMAX is still a great way to get out of the house and do something educational with the family.
“We are showing some amazing nature documentaries including “Into Nature’s Wild”, “Great Bear Rainforest”, and “Superpower Dogs”, they’re all fantastic movies, and they’re short as well, those films are only about 45 minutes long,” said Holota. “If you’re looking for something to do, you want to get out of the house, you want to go somewhere where it’s safe, then a trip to the IMAX is a wonderful way to do that.”
Holota says opening weekend will be limited to Science Centre members, with shows being open to the public on July 30th.