RALEIGH N.C. — Entertainment venues like the Raleigh Convention Center and the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts usually play host to hundreds of events and thousands of people every year. However, the coronavirus pandemic has halted everything, leaving the centers empty and struggling financially.

Kerry Painter is the director of the Raleigh Convention & Performing Arts Complex and also leads a coalition of arts and entertainment venues throughout North Carolina. The coalition has been working to create new protocols. She told Spectrum News 1 anchor Caroline Blair in a two-part interview that those new guidelines are essential so that when they’re given the green light from Gov. Roy Cooper, they can properly open back up. 

As phase 2.5 gets underway at 5 p.m. Friday, entertainment venues like theaters, performing arts centers, and concert halls are left in the dark. That isn’t keeping Painter and others from working to create a more than 20 point check system that includes how they’ll handle everything from entrance to their venue, food and beverage sales, ticketing, social distancing, and of course cleaning.

Painter says the experience will be different once they’re able to open, but they working to make it safe.