This photo shows the Hong Kong Palace Museum, which is located along the waterfront of the West Kowloon Cultural District, on June 7, 2022. (ANDY CHONG / CHINA DAILY)
A total 140,000 online tickets for the Hong Kong Palace Museum were distributed on Tuesday, with many people waiting in virtual lines to get admission to the newly built iconic cultural landmark.
China Daily reporters tried to log on to the online ticketing platforms that began offering tickets around 10:30 am. After half an hour, the platforms showed that thousands of people were waiting to get tickets and the waiting time would last for over an hour.
Tickets will be available only online for the first three months after the museum’s opening.
Located along the waterfront of the West Kowloon Cultural District, the Hong Kong Palace Museum is set to open on July 2 as part of celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’ return to the motherland
Located along the waterfront of the West Kowloon Cultural District, the museum is set to open on July 2 as part of celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong’ return to the motherland.
The tickets available on Tuesday were for the first four weeks of the museum’s operation, with prices ranging from HK$50 ($6.37) to HK$120. Every buyer is limited to a maximum of four tickets.
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The museum will have free admission to most exhibitions every Wednesday during the museum’s first year of operation. But for now, the free reservations, like the tickets, are available only online.
Eighty percent of the tickets are available on the website and mobile application of the West Kowloon Cultural District, and the rest are selling on the online platforms of the museum’s ticketing partners — Klook, China Travel Service (Hong Kong) Ltd, and Fliggy.
The museum, which comprises nine galleries, will display 914 Chinese art treasures from the Palace Museum in Beijing at the opening exhibitions, with the majority of them being shown in Hong Kong for the first time.
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“This is a once-in-a-blue-moon chance to see the treasures. I strongly encourage local residents to have a visit,” museum director Louis Ng Chi-wa said at a news conference on June 7 during a briefing on the museum’s ticketing arrangement.