After a year of crisis and several months of closure, indoor leisure spaces are reopening this Wednesday, June 9. Weakened, happy, cautious.
Anne-Sophie HacheReading time: 3 minShare:“A coffee? Eventually it will be a glass of water. The coffee machine is being cleaned, as every corner of the 2,000 m2 leisure area seems to be. A laser game and giant trampoline park on the first floor of a commercial area, in Neuville-en-Ferrain (Nord). Two days before the opening, it purrs in the void to the sound of vacuum cleaners.
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“The whole team is present this morning to restore everything. They too are eager to resume, ”smiles Sébastien Fuger, a partner in the company. “A space like this, with children, usually, it is very noisy. I never thought I could miss it so much. Morally, it's hard. "We are both tense and excited," said manager Raphaël Meganck.
A feeling shared by colleagues, says the one who is also the regional representative of the SPACE association which federates them. "It's been five months since we sold a part, it feels like opening a new park", "but with a lot more debt...", completes his partner with a smile.
Moving forward
We rewind to a year ago: “After the first confinement, we reopened in June and there, a very big drop in attendance. We lost half of our turnover. We spent the summer well with the leisure centers and then, at the end of October, we closed, on the eve of Halloween, our biggest evening of the year. We had Christmas, with the children, and we closed at the beginning of January, remembers Sébastien Fuger. Last year, we received three times €1,500 in aid per month. We were told €10,000 in aid, knowing that our monthly fixed costs are around €30,000: we are structures installed on large surfaces for rent, where the world comes for something new, we always have to invest. Extremely heavy investments. We said we're going to die. »
Mobilized, the sector finally obtained from the Ministry of the Economy to be helped from January to June for 90% of their fixed costs, i.e. for the company “more than €100,000, still not arrived”. On the eve of a reopening on sunny days, not the best season for indoor leisure, and in reduced gauge.
"No one has made any cash, and we will start repaying the PGE (loan guaranteed by the State) next year... We are worried" But also "happy", as evidenced by their smiles and also the boss of a vast leisure area in Hazebrouck, Francis Onraet, for whom “you have to stay positive and move forward. That's what dominates. »
Read also coronavirusdeconfinementLeisure Neuville-en-Ferrain (59960, North)Hazebrouck (59190, North)
