LAHORE: With less than two days left for lifting of Covid-19 restrictions across the country, almost all the websites of cinemas went "out of order" showing no results for movies which will be exhibited from Monday and the schedule of reopening of cinemas.
A number of people, who spoke with Business Recorder, expressed their displeasure over the development saying they were anxiously waiting for the reopening of cinemas to watch movies and to get themselves "refresh" or to feel alive once again after the ending of social distancing restrictions adopted by the government to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.
Earlier this year, the federal government had placed the cinemas industry on its negative for posing a great risk of spreading the coronavirus. However, the government has finally allowed this industry to operate by following the prescribed SOPs.
An online survey carried out by this scribe on Friday witnessed that a majority of the websites of cinemas were out of order as some were showing errors while opening and the others were suggesting "no session time available" or "there are currently no movies scheduled. Check again later".
The websites of the cinemas that were checked included CineStar, Cinepax, Universal Cinemas, Super Cinema, CUE CINEMAS and DHA Cinema besides others. Ammara Nawaz, a student, said she remained unable to open link of any cinema website for hours. "I tried so many times to open links of the cinema websites and to watch the schedule of movies and booking some tickets in advance, but all in vain," she told this scribe.
Haider Shah, a teenage boy, also narrated the same story but added that he also tried to find information from the Facebook and Instagram pages of the cinema but could not get any. "But surprisingly I too did not see any Covid-19-related advisory there," he pointed out.
On March 14, the management of the CineStar had announced on its Facebook page closing down all its operations as a precautionary measure and for the well-being of customers in the wake of Covid-19. But since then no new announcement was uploaded regarding reopening of the cinema.
Likewise, the Cinepax Cinemas has also not made any announcement regarding resumption of its operations and schedules of movies. However, the Facebook page of the Cinepax Cinemas found quite active in uploading the trailer of various movies.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020