Mississauga’s Living Arts Centre and home of city’s OHL team have seating capacity cut in half

Mississauga officials are scrambling to figure out exactly what the Ontario government’s new COVID-19 restrictions mean for upcoming events at the Living Arts Centre (LAC) and the home arena of the OHL’s Mississauga Steelheads.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said yesterday that, among other measures to fight the spread of the new Omicron variant of the virus, capacity limits at Ontario venues with regular seating for more than 1,000 people are being cut to 50 per cent as of this Saturday.

While it appears the Steelheads’ game tomorrow night against the North Bay Battalion at the 5,600-seat Paramount Fine Foods Centre won’t be impacted by the Province’s latest capacity restrictions, the same can’t be said for performances scheduled at the LAC on Saturday and Sunday nights.

A Baroque Christmas takes to the stage inside the 1,300-seat Hammerson Hall at 8 p.m. on Dec. 18. Tickets, at $50 apiece, still remain, according to the LAC website, though it’s not known how many tickets have been sold.

If that performance is capped at 50 per cent seating, and more than half the tickets have been sold, it’s unclear how the LAC will get that event down to 50 per cent capacity.

The same holds true for Sunday night’s performance of A Merry Little Christmas at the same venue. Tickets to that show cost $30.

Beyond this weekend, Hope for Vision is slated to take place inside Hammerson Hall on Dec. 30.

The LAC’s RBC Theatre, with a capacity of 400, is not impacted by Ontario’s capacity limit rules.

City of Mississauga officials said this morning in an email to insauga.com that they’re still working through what precisely the latest provincial government regulations mean for upcoming events at the LAC, Paramount Fine Foods Centre and other Mississauga venues.

The Steelheads’ next home game after this Friday is slated for Dec. 29 against the same Battalion squad.

The Raptors 905 basketball team, the developmental outfit of the NBA’s Toronto Raptors, also plays its home games at Paramount.

Raptors 905 are scheduled to host the Grand Rapids Gold on Dec. 28 and again on Dec. 30.