Cultural Affairs Bureau cancels Chinese New Year activities
reinforcing the epidemic preventative measures in cultural venues

Date of publication: 23/01/2020
Type: ---

In response to the current outbreak of pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus, the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC, from its Portuguese acronym) will cancel the event “Let’s Celebrate the Lunar New Year of the Rat” and all activities, scheduled to be held from today (23 January) to 9 February, during the Lunar New Year, while some of the activities will be postponed. In order to effectively prevent the epidemic situation, IC has launched an emergency response working group to pay close attention to the development of epidemic situation and rapidly deploy the corresponding measures to strengthen the epidemic prevention and control of cultural venues under IC.

The event “Let’s Celebrate the Lunar New Year of the Rat” and all activities, scheduled to be held from today to 9 February, during the Lunar New Year, organized by the Cultural Affairs Bureau, will be cancelled, in order to avoid high density of people. The concert “Music for All – When Music Speaks” and the Valentine’s Day Concert “Sentiments” on 8 February will be cancelled. Spectators with tickets for the Valentine’s Day Concert “Sentiments” can request the respective refund at the Macau Ticketing Network outlets from today to 8 February by presenting the tickets. Other activities such as “Chinese-Style Fabric Headdress Workshop”, originally scheduled to be held from 25 to 27 January, “Family Art: A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains & Catalogue of Marine Creatures” on 9 February, “Little Artists: A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains 3.0 – Discover Wang Ximeng” on 15 February, and the talk “Sea and sky” on 16 February, will be postponed until further notice. In addition, reservation service for guided tours of all heritage sites under IC and guided tour service of all cultural exhibitions will also be suspended or cancelled until further notice.

Contingency guidelines for frontline staff responding to the outbreak of the new coronavirus infection and corresponding measures have been launched, including mandatory use of face masks by frontline staff, full reinforcement of cleaning and disinfection of cultural sites and cultural facilities, and implementation of crowd control and diversion measures of all cultural venues and heritage sites by halving the maximum mass flow rate of visitors, in order to reduce the density of people and avoid intensive contact. Macao Cultural Centre Auditorium Building will be closed from the afternoon of 24 January to 29 January, while the ticket office will remain open.

For more information about the activities, please visit IC’s website at www.icm.gov.mo, its official WeChat account “ICMacao” or “IC Art” page on Facebook, or contact IC through tel. no. 2836 6866 during office hours. For enquiries about the refund of tickets, please contact the Macau Ticketing Network through tel. no. 2855 5555 during office hours.