{"id":5605,"date":"2020-03-25T00:36:39","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T00:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=5605"},"modified":"2020-03-25T00:36:39","modified_gmt":"2020-03-25T00:36:39","slug":"cultural-facilities-close-temporarily-in-line-with-social-gathering-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2020\/03\/25\/cultural-facilities-close-temporarily-in-line-with-social-gathering-restrictions\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural facilities close temporarily in line with social gathering restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

All City of Newcastle cultural facilities have closed until further notice but will continue to engage audiences online following a national directive to close all non-essential services to limit the spread of COVID-19.
\nNewcastle Art Gallery, Civic Theatre and Newcastle Museum, including the attached Newcastle Shop and Visitor Information Centre, have closed as a further public health precaution after yesterday\u2019s temporary closure of library branches and last week\u2019s shutdown of Fort Scratchley. The caf\u00e9 at the Civic Theatre will remain open, serving takeaway customers only.
\n\u201cWhile we believe that heritage and culture are important elements of a healthy community, in order for our city and organisation to focus on doing everything in our power to manage this pandemic, our cultural facilities\u00a0will be\u00a0closed until further notice,\u201d Interim Director of City Wide Services Alissa Jones said.
\n\u201cOur cultural facilities\u2019 staff and volunteers know this is a difficult time for Newcastle and the rest of the\u00a0world, but also understand that the technology available to most households today allows the show to go on in cyberspace.
\n\u201cAccordingly, the staff and volunteers of Newcastle Museum, Fort\u00a0Scratchley\u00a0Historical Society, Civic Theatre and the Art Gallery have set about creating online resources, developing cultural programming and curating materials and other activities involved in caring for and promoting the City\u2019s collections.\u201d
\nNewcastle Museum Director Julie Baird said her team drew hope and courage from the city\u2019s history of resilience in difficult times.
\n\u201cWe have survived adversity in our past and we will again,\u201d Ms Baird said.
\n\u201cWe will utilise this time to care for the Museum\u2019s collection and heritage assets and focus our efforts on entertaining and informing the community in different ways until it\u2019s safe to welcome you back in person.\u201d
\nDirector of Newcastle Art Gallery Lauretta Morton said the gallery looked forward to raising spirits online and via digital channels.
\n\u201cDuring our closure, the Art Gallery team will develop new initiatives to connect to our audiences through our website and social media channels,\u201d Ms Morton said. \u201cWe will be sharing virtual tours of exhibitions, collection highlights and behind-the-scenes videos. Our popular family\u00a0ArtCart program activity sheets<\/a>\u00a0will also be available\u00a0online.
\n\u201cThe Gallery plays an important role supporting the health and wellbeing of our community and we look forward to welcoming everyone back to the Gallery as soon as possible.\u201d
\nCivic Services Manager Delia O\u2019Hara said most Civic Theatre shows that had to be postponed had been re-scheduled.
\n\u201cThese include the Very Popular Theatre Company\u2019s production of Chess, Tim Minchin\u2019s Back and Carl Barron. Tickets are on sale for these and other future performances, both\u00a0online<\/a>\u00a0and by phone, while our shopfront ticket office is temporarily closed,\u00a0so we look forward to welcoming our audience back later in 2020.
\n\u201cOver at our Visitor Information Centre (VIC), staff are hard at work preparing for the move later in the year to the newly renovated Civic Station building, which will be a vastly superior VIC that caters to Newcastle\u2019s bright future of tourism post-COVID-19.
\n\u201cVisitor information is always available at visitnewcastle.com.au.\u201d
\nFor\u202ffurther information on City of Newcastle\u2019s response to COVID-19 please\u00a0visit\u00a0www.newcastle.nsw.gov.au\/COVID-19<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All City of Newcastle cultural facilities have closed until further notice but will continue to engage audiences online following a national directive to close all non-essential services to limit the spread of COVID-19. Newcastle Art Gallery, Civic Theatre and Newcastle Museum, including the attached Newcastle Shop and Visitor Information Centre, have closed as a further … Continue reading “Cultural facilities close temporarily in line with social gathering restrictions”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newcastle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}