Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands last week hosted its first large-scale live event since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis.
“Back to Live,” held December 18 and 19 at the Sands Theatre and featuring a lineup of local performers, was expected to draw crowds of 500, making it Singapore’s largest public gathering since March, when the government locked down much of the city-state, including its two gaming resorts, to contain the spread of the pandemic.
Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa reopened in July after a three-month shutdown, but stringent limits on capacity and a pandemic-related freeze on international travel has made the recovery process a slow one.
The capacity restrictions have since been eased, and business has resumed in the two casinos and across large areas of their retail malls, food and beverage outlets and some MICE venues. Entertainment events, however, remained off-limits. With “Back to Live” that appears to have ended, although attendees had to produce negative Covid test results to gain admittance, and the shows were conducted under social distancing measures that included dividing the theater into zones of no more than 50 people in each and spacing seats at least a meter apart.
Marina Bay Sands’ Senior Vice President of Resort Operations Paul Town hailed it as “a great step towards the gradual return of live entertainment in Singapore.”
“As we reopen our entertainment venues in a responsible manner, we hope to instill confidence to welcome back concert-goers as they experience the best performances in this renewed environment.”
