The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle will reopen to the public on Sept. 18 with new safety measures in place, six months after closing because of the coronavirus pandemic.

MoPOP was founded by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 2000 to celebrate popular culture and music through memorabilia and rotating, interactive exhibits.

MoPOP lists numerous guidelines it will follow in order to reopen, and in line with Washington state’s Phase 2 reopening guidelines, including limiting museum capacity to 25% to promote social distancing, using electrostatic sprayers in galleries and high-traffic areas, requiring face masks for employees and guests, providing sanitized stylus pens for guests to use with interactive elements, and requiring tickets be purchased in advance for a specific entry time.

A Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification from the Washington Employment Security Department on Aug. 21 said that 32 employees were laid off by the museum. MoPOP did not share any numbers on Wednesday about how many people were let go or how many are still employed, saying that contingent and temporary positions were eliminated.

“These roles are meant to help us ramp up staffing when we are at capacity in normal operations and, unfortunately, we won’t be at ‘normal’ for some time,” Michael Cole-Schwartz, a MoPOP senior communications manager, told GeekWire. “Even with reopening on the horizon, we still have to contend with diminished capacity, a sharp decline in tourism, and the lasting effects of the global economic downturn.”

Items on display in a Pearl Jam exhibit at MoPOP in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

The museum, near the base of the Space Needle, will be open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Other institutions founded by Allen and run by his Vulcan Inc. — the Cinerama movie theater and Living Computers: Museum + Labs, for instance — face uncertain futures because of the economic effects of the pandemic and Vulcan’s decision, announced in May, to wind down Vulcan Arts + Entertainment and Vulcan Productions.

MoPOP was not listed by Vulcan during that May announcement because it is an independent 501(c)3 organization that is not impacted by the decisions.

“In times like these, community is more important than ever,” MoPOP says in a statement on its website. “We want you to know that we’re here for you, and as we adjust to new ways of living and socializing, we hope to help you stay connected to the world and each other through the power of pop culture.”

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