Overview
UPDATE: JUNE 22, 2020 — The Arts Centre Melbourne has decided to postpone its partial reopening because of the new restrictions on capacities (20 compared to the initial 50). We'll let you know when a new date is announce.d
This month, life is going to be a little more normal for Melburnians. From today, Monday, June 1, restaurants, cafes and pubs are reopening for dine-in service, you can have 20 people over and you can head on a regional holiday — just in time for the long weekend, too. Plus, a little later in the month, we'll be allowed to, once again, visit many of the city's cultural institutions.
While Premier Daniel Andrews said that the reopening of art galleries, historic sites, libraries and museums is permissible from June 1, Melbourne's major cultural institutions today announced that they won't officially reopen till Saturday, June 27, to coincide with the upcoming school holidays. Similarly to restaurants and cafes, they'll need to adhere to strict social distancing guidelines and will be allowed one visitor per four square metres.
The list of late-June reopenings includes the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Museum, State Library Victoria, IMAX Melbourne and Scienceworks. The Immigration Museum is slated to reopen in August.
If you want to borrow or return a library book sooner, The City of Melbourne is reopening six libraries — City Library, Library at the Dock, Kathleen Syme Library, North Melbourne Library, Southbank Library and East Melbourne Library — from Tuesday, June 9.
As capacity is limited, time-allotted visits will be essential, with many of the galleries and museums requiring pre-purchased tickets. Melbourne Museum and Scienceworks tickets will go on sale from June 22, which you can book via the Museums Victoria website. For IMAX Melbourne, head here for ticket sale updates. The NGV's strategy will include free timed ticketing and "appropriate queue management".
Melbourne's major art and cultural institutions have been closed to the public since mid-March. So, in order to keep a sense of connection going — between artist and audience, venue and punter — many institutions made the transition to digital. There's the NGV's series of virtual tours and drawing classes, Melbourne Museum's at-home digital content, the State Library's 19,000-strong e-book collection and the Victorian Government's new online hub of comedy, live music and film screenings, to name a few, which will continue for the meantime.
Top image: Scienceworks 'Beyond Perception' courtesy of Museums Victoria and Benjamin Heally.