It's been a busy 14 hours here at Hall for Cornwall, but following a hurculean effort by staff we are pleased to announce that tonight's Grapes of Wrath performance WILL go ahead as planned!
Unfortunately, during last night's performance one of the below-stage sprinklers was triggered. Due to the location, water collected very quickly and for safety reasons power in the theatre had to be shut off and the performance cancelled.
Once the theatre had been checked by the fire brigade, the clean-up operation began immediately with staff working until the early hours. Even one sprinkler can discharge a huge quantity of water in a relatively short space of time and it was a lot of work to set things to rights.At the time of writing, we have successfully dealt with the water and have installed industrial driers in the affected areas. Aside from drying out, we have obviously also had to conduct work on the sprinkler system itself and extensively test the electrics to ensure tonight's performance can go ahead.
Investigations into the cause of the incident are ongoing but I am pleased to be able to report that damage appears minimal due in large part to the swift actions of staff in dealing with the water.
We would all like to offer our apologies to any of our readers who were caught up in what proved to be a disappointing and difficult night. In such cases, where a sprinkler has activated, evacuation of the audience, cast and staff is absolutely necessary whilst the cause of the alarm is investigated by the fire brigade.
All audience members are being offered the choice between a refund or an alternate performance, with Box Office staff working today to re-accommodate many of last night's audience into the remaining performances. The play is well worth seeing and we hope to be welcoming most of our disappointed audience members back tonight and tomorrow.
We have been grateful for the messages of support and understanding from our customers. Your help and good natured cooperation with the staff who conducted the evacuation is also very much appreciated by us all.
Box Office can be contacted on 01872 262466
As you can see from the pictures taken this morning we are almost back to normal. The pictured sprinkler (top) is an example of the one triggered - the size of the pipe gives some idea of the discharge rate of the system!
2 comments:
I hope the people affected booked in for another performance - I saw the play this afternoon and it was absolutely brilliant - though it made for a harrowing afternoon because of the subject! How anyone could not be in tears at the final scene I do not know! A very big thank you to the whole cast and allthose others involved in bringing us this quality.
I am only sorry that there were not more people in the audience to appreciate the actors' efforts.
Thank's for your comment. I'm pleased to report that we were able to offer alternative tickets to everyone we've been able to contact or who contacted us. There was a good uptake of this offer.
I saw the play on Tuesday and it was, as you say, a very powerful and moving performance.
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