Ontario Reintroducing Capacity Limits on Indoor Venues

Venues for over 1,000 people will operate at 50 percent capacity

Photo via Scotiabank Arena on Facebook

BY Alex HudsonPublished Dec 15, 2021

Just two months since Ontario lifted all capacity limits for indoor concerts, the province is reintroducing province-wide limits on indoor entrainment spaces.

Starting this Saturday (December 18), many venues with a capacity of over 1,000 will have to operate at 50 percent capacity. This includes concert venues, sports arenas, theatres and more. At a press conference, Premier Doug Ford pointed out that attendees at these large venues are sitting side-by-side, often unmasked, for extended periods of time.

UPDATE (12/17, 3:11 p.m. ET): Many shows taking place in Ontario have now been cancelled or delayed. See a list of those shows here.

This news comes amidst surging COVID cases, as well as the spread of the Omicron variant.

Some larger concerts are already being cancelled and rescheduled. The Avalanches were scheduled to play Toronto's Phoenix Concert Theatre on February 22, but as of today, that's now been pushed back to October 4, 2022

Vaccine booster shots are being made available to more Ontario residents. Anyone 18 or older who has two doses of the vaccine will be eligible for a third starting on Monday (December 20), and some pharmacies will begin providing boosters for walk-ins on Friday (December 17). The minimum interval between the second dose and the booster shot has been changed from six months to three months.

COVID-19 rapid tests will be made available to the public for free at pop-up testing sites and LCBO locations.

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