China’s ministry of culture and tourism has implemented a new centralised ticketing system for the country’s live performance sector.

All domestic ticketing systems for live performances — including music, dance, comedy, and plays — will be linked to a national ticketing information management platform with unified standards for sales, distribution, and refunds.

The China Association of Performing Arts (CAPA), an industry body under the ministry that led the creation of the standards, says that their implementation will effectively curb scalpers as well as help monitor ticket sales and analyse the performance industry.

“With the support of this standard, future performance ticketing information collection and services are oriented to both the industry and the government,” says the CAPA.

“[NOW] FUTURE PERFORMANCE TICKETING INFORMATION COLLECTION AND SERVICES ARE ORIENTED TO BOTH THE INDUSTRY AND THE GOVERNMENT”

“Only by using real market data to reflect the real market conditions can we strive for more and more accurate policy support for the performance industry. The unified ticket management platform will enable the industry to more intuitively observe the performance industry and market operation status, and provide a data basis for market analysis.”

The platform was launched following criticism of some local and national vendors and event operators for setting aside tickets for “speculation and scalping”.

In an effort to curb such practices, the ministry of culture and tourism in 2017 introduced a new measure that required event operators to sell at least 70% of tickets for commercial performances directly to the public.

The ministry launched the new Performance Ticketing Service and Technical Specification system yesterday (19 August).

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