Owners of Sunshine Coast venue NightQuarter say they could reopen soon after Covid raid

The owners of NightQuarter have revealed what the future holds for their popular music venue after a Covid-19 raid slammed their doors shut.

Owners of popular Sunshine Coast venue NightQuarter say they’ll soon be given the green light to reopen after a successful meeting with Queensland Health.

It was announced at the weekend that health officials and police raided the Birtinya venue on Friday night and ordered the closure of its live music main stage over alleged “multiple breaches” of Covid-19 rules.

NightQuarter strongly denied any wrongdoing regarding its Covid Safe plan and called out the “double standards” between Covid-19 restrictions on sport matches and live music events in Queensland.

Owner Ian Van der Woude said he and wife Michelle Christoe had a meeting with Queensland Health officials on Tuesday, June 15 and both parties agreed to make changes to its Covid Safe plan.

“What we’ve agreed is to make some minor amendments to our plan, obviously we understand their concerns about the safety of patrons in the live music industry,” he said.

“There are some minor changes in the way we allocate seating, the way we have the seating positioned within the live music space and some further messaging and procedures around when bands are on stage.

“Basically if people start moving around then we have to have a show stopper so people get back to their seats.”

The crowd during a Spacey Jane concert at NightQuarter last weekend.

Mr Van der Woude said the venue was yet to submit its new Covid Safe plan to Queensland Health but planned on doing so on Wednesday afternoon, which they believed would allow them to reopen once approved.

“The important thing here for us is we’ve been able to make some changes, agree (to) those changes with Queensland Health in a meeting today, and that’s resulted in them now, subject to the submission of the final plan which we’re doing with those tweaks, they will lift the cease and desist order on NightQuarter live,” he said.

“We will be open, we just have to get the final sign off on our Covid Safe plan but we had an agreement in principle coming out that meeting that if we do these tweaks to our Covid Safe plan then they will lift the ban on holding live music events at NightQuarter.”

Mr Van der Woude said he hoped the changes would allow them to reopen before country rock artist Casey Barnes’ concert at NightQuarter on Friday, June 25.

Australian surf rock band Hockey Dad announced on Tuesday that a show scheduled at NightQuarter would be held on September 4.

“What’s disappointing is that this discussion could’ve occurred last week without the damage it caused to the events over the weekend,” he said.

“We had an hour and a half meeting and there’s no reason why that couldn’t have been held last week.”

A Queensland Health spokesman said NightQuarter’s updated Covid Safe plan had not been received.

MP Jarrod Bleijie, NightQuarter operators Ian Van der Woude and Michelle Christoe and artist Patch Brown were angered by the State Government’s decision to shut down the venue’s live music.

The spokesman said once the plan was resubmitted and endorsed, the venue would have time to implement the changes and Queensland Health would then review the case before committing to any reopening.

“Queensland Health continues to work with the owners of NightQuarter to address concerns about the lack of compliance with public health directions,” the spokesman said.

“Those concerns need to be addressed by the business and they need to adhere to the public health directions before we work with them on reopening.

“The business has not yet submitted an updated Covid Safe plan.”

The spokesman said the order to close NightQuarter’s main stage did not come about because of an isolated incident.

“Since November 2020, we have investigated several complaints by members of the community and Queensland Police Service,” the spokesman said.

“In that time, we identified multiple breaches relating to the precinct exceeding occupant density and, as a result, patrons being unable to physically distance.

“Prior to the closure order, Queensland Health issued warnings and met with NightQuarter’s operators at least four times to help them operate under the plan.

“We support the live entertainment industry and will always work with operators to ensure they can continue to operate.

“Our primary job, however, is to protect the health of Queenslanders and that is what we are doing.”

UPDATEOvernight NightQuarter was issued with a directive from the Sunshine Coast Public Health Unit to temporarily shut...

Posted by NightQuarter on Friday, June 11, 2021

Ms Christoe previously told the Daily that the venue had “consistently done everything reasonable to keep our patrons safe”.

“We refute any suggestion that NightQuarter did not take its responsibility seriously,” she said.

“In fact, we go well over-and-above what is being done at large sporting events.”

Kawana MP Jarrod Bleijie said the prospect of NightQuarter reopening was great news for the live entertainment industry on the Coast.

“It should never have happened, they should never have been closed down,” he said.

Mr Bleijie said Queensland Health’s approach was “heavy handed” from the start but NightQuarter was happy to make the necessary changes so they could open their doors again.

“It’s unfortunate because people have lost income over the last few days because of the closure but now Queensland Health have seen sense and they’re going to overturn the decision as I understand the afternoon,” he said.

“(It’s a) huge backflip but a right backflip. It shouldn’t have even occurred in the first place.”

It comes as independent band San Cisco called for compensation from the state government on Tuesday, claiming the snap shutdown left them unfairly out of pocket.