The performing arts need support, but unlike retailers and hospitality businesses calling for more punters, venues are asking people to get the jab to help make reopening possible.

Theatre Royal Nelson manager Eliane Polack​ launched the “Get your Jab” campaign, and the Nelson Centre of Musical Arts and a few related live performance businesses joined her, encouraging what Polack said was one of the few positive steps people could take to help get the performing arts back onto stages and into auditoriums.

The campaign videos call for people to get the vaccine, if they are eligible, to help venues get from “here”, with empty stages and closed venues, to “there”, with stage shows and performances with packed audiences again.

“Because of the size [of the Theatre Royal] there are some parts that don’t even have one metre of space. So as long as there is a distancing requirement, we can’t open,” Polack said.

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She said the “get your Jab” campaign was something simple that live venues could do to encourage positive action, “rather than just sitting and waiting for the next wave to roll over”.

“All we can do at the moment is get the message out, it’s quite clear: you can do something, you can help. You can do something, actively, to help us get from here to there.”

She said the effects of Covid lockdowns and restrictions were further reaching and longer lasting than people might realise.

“The people who produce the show have to know if they’re going to spend all that time and money and effort on something that’s actually going to happen … [but] it’s not just that – people are also drifting away. People who were working as crew that are now going to try to become electricians, to make sure they still have a job.”

She said things like enforcing vaccine passports would be extra work, but that was nothing compared to the hardship of forced closure.

“There are many things that may not be law, but which we do for our own feeling of being in a society. As a venue we are used to working with health and safety and risk management … if that means that we have to enforce certain things, like not allowing smoking in the theatre, so be it.”

Nelson Centre of Musical Arts (NCMA) director James Donaldson said the NCMA had joined the campaign because, just like the Theatre Royal, live performances had been drastically curtailed by Covid restrictions.

“This particular wave has probably been a bit tougher than the previous one,” he said.

This was partially due to the timing.

“If you’re going to have a lockdown, earlier in the year is better than later.

“In March, that first lockdown, there was still time to pick yourself up. This time, there just hasn’t been that.”

He said there was a somewhat ironic situation, where it was actually a bit easier during total lockdowns than it was with distancing requirements, “because we can turn the lights off, and that takes out a significant bill”.

He said there had been some funding from the New Zealand Music Commission which helped the NCMA diversify the shows it could put on during restricted periods, but the ongoing impact of Covid meant the centre was “feeling the long-term effects now”.

He said the NCMA also saw vaccination as essentially the one active step all eligible people could take to help get performances back up and running, and given the delays between doses, the sooner the better.

“It’s the one thing that everybody can do for us … if you’re ok getting your vaccine, do it soon. I think it’s only going to get harder to gather in groups.”

He said that while it was an unfortunate situation, he believed the encouragement to get vaccinated and help the performing arts was a positive message.