Phased Reopening Plan - EVO Cinemas in Texas

[Scott Jentsch]

EVO Entertainment operates five locations in Texas, and they announced recently that they will begin reopening their theaters starting Monday, May 4, 2020.

They have a phased reopening plan, which seems pretty good on paper. I like that it sets expectations so people know what steps they're taking to address safety concerns.

One missing piece is the progress between the phases, and what triggers going from Phase 1 to Phase 2, for example.

EVO Entertainment Relaunch

I wrote up my own summary here: EVO Cinemas Planning May 4, 2020 Reopening


If nothing else, this could act as a template for other theaters to follow as they develop their own reopening plans. I think it's going to be challenging to restore customer confidence, and I think that having a plan and publicizing it would be a good way to instill that confidence. Thoughts?

[Frank Cox]

Facial coverings will be required

How do you eat your popcorn without removing your facial covering and passing your germ along to the guy in the next row?

[Brad Miller]

EVO did a very nice job with their website explaining their plans.

That being said, I'm still not understanding why pretty much every theater leaves 2 empty chairs to the side of each person/party, but will happily place another person in the seat right in front of them.

[Marcel Birgelen]

If you look at their plans, you see that they leave an entire row in between in Phase 1, in Phase 2 they leave the seats in front and to the back empty but arrange everything diagonally and in Phase 3 it's pretty much business as usual.

My biggest problem is how you're going to handle people getting up during the show, because they urgently need to go to the toilet. I guess to avoid that happening as much as possible, you could implement an intermission, in which everybody has to leave the auditorium in an "6 ft." way?

[Martin McCaffery]

I look forward to them taking the temperature of everyone who enters the theatre. Not sure how they expect to do that from six feet away. And asking about their health. Going to piss of lots of Texans. Arrive early, this is going to take awhile.

[Marcel Birgelen]

You can check the temperature of someone by using IR scanners from 6 ft. away. It's not really a reliable method and from what I've heard, asymptomatic people spread the virus as well, but it sure is great security theater.

[Carsten Kurz]

I know companys using thermalcams to scan employees from a distance when entering the building, and then doing a proper ear measurement if the thermal cam triggers an alarm. Of course, this is not a perfect solution, but it is one of multiple combined efforts. There is no solution that isolates every single occurrence, but, again, this is not necessary, as it is a statistical/epidemiological task.

[Marcel Birgelen]

What's the legal position on this? Can you refuse to service someone who doesn't want to have his temperature taken?

And that other nagging problem remains: What are you going to do with people that need to get up during the show? Or are you going to seat at most two groups in every row, so everybody has their "exclusive exit' either on the left or right? In that case, you might have an advantage if you have one or more center aisles.

[Jarod Reddig]

As said EVO Cinemas has done a real nice job explaining everything on their website.

[Carsten Kurz]

What's the legal position on this? Can you refuse to service someone who doesn't want to have his temperature taken?

I guess you can. At least in certain areas you even have the right to perform Covid19 tests on them, so...
At least in germany, this so far has been done with employees in medical care. In a cinema, germany knows a legal clause 'Hausrecht'. It's the same that allows you to demand people to not bring their own food or not use their smartphones in the auditorium. You have to expose these rules so people are able to read them before they buy their ticket. If afterwards they don't comply - you are entitled to throw them out.

I don't know, however, if I'd do that as an entry control for a leisure business like a cinema.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I guess it varies between jurisdiction, but even "Hausrecht" has often some limits, especially to avoid discrimination. Discrimination may seem simple, but in practice, is a difficult word with 1000 explanations... Quite often, you can't just deny service to a random stranger with no profound reasons. As a cinema, you can, for example draft up some basic regulations in which you state that everybody should come fully dressed, to avoid people entering half-naked, obviously, you can expect people to "behave" or otherwise deny or eject them. Equally, you can establish a dress-code at a fancy club or restaurant, but you can't simply send someone away because they look sick, for example. Someone's medical details are pretty well protected in the whole of Europe, the recent GDPR only adds to this. I remember that for "full body checks" at venues like stadiums, there had to be a special law put into place to make this possible.

I guess that in these exceptional times, people may look the other way, but the exact legal ramifications may be a lot more difficult.

[David Bird]

I think if I was having to space people apart at an indoor theatre with a large rows of center-seats, I might consider popping some of those seats out to create a temporary extra aisle, might let you get more distanced people in the room. Who knows, maybe old-style "box seats" will be a thing for a while.