bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Hong Kong moviegoers now can choose and pay for the seats they want through the Internet.

 CityLine yesterday launched its Web site, which lets registered customers buy tickets via the Net after viewing the theatre seating plan on their computer screens.

 By contrast, users of CityLine's popular automated telephone ticketing service can choose only approximately where their seats will be, such as 'back of the centre section'.

 Buying a ticket over the Internet will take about two minutes, compared with six minutes on average for phone customers.

 'It should be a lot faster,' Patricia Gaw, vice-president of CityLine, said.

 The Web site has short film reviews, theatre maps, restaurant recommendations and discounts, and a shop selling digital versatile disc (DVD) movies.

 The $7.50 surcharge on most of the 7,000 tickets sold daily through CityLine's automated phone-ticketing service also will apply to Web purchases.

 So far, the CityLine Web site offers tickets only for the six theatres operated by United Artists, a CityLine sister company.

 Ms Gaw said CityLine hoped to persuade Golden Harvest and Edko, which sold tickets for their theatres through CityLine's telephone service, to join in.

 CityLine first launched the site (www.cityline.com.hk) last year, when it was located in the cybermall of Internet service provider, Netvigator.

 That site initially only allowed customers to buy tickets from one Kowloon theatre, and it encountered capacity problems when there was heavy customer demand.

 'Because we had to check the inventory of tickets in real-time, there was a bit of congestion [on the network link between Netvigator and CityLine],' Ms Gaw said.

 The revamped Web site was built for $500,000 by CityLine and its partner, electronic commerce provider iMerchants.

 Customers log on to CityLine's Windows NT Web server and choose the movie, time, and location.

 They then look at an on-screen representation of the seating chart of the theatre, with up-to-date information on which seats are available.

 Customers then click on to the seats they want. But they cannot dawdle - another user who clicks on the same seats can nab them by paying first. By contrast, the telephone service holds a customer's seats from the time it locates them until the credit-card transaction is completed.

 Web-site users need only give credit-card information once, when registering. The passwords are protected by a firewall and messages between the user and CityLine's server are safeguarded by SSL encryption.

 'When SET [secure exchange transaction] wallets become more wide-spread, we will adopt it,' Ms Gaw said. 'But I don't think it's necessary right now.'  She said one of the main advantages of SET - the ability for consumers to pay via a certified third party, so the merchant never sees the customer's credit-card number - was a moot point with CityLine, since for confirmation purposes, customers must swipe their credit card at a CityLine machine in front of a theatre to get tickets printed out.

 Ms Gaw made no forecast on how much of CityLine's sales would come through the Internet. The company has sold about three million tickets since its inception five years ago, with more than half the tickets for some popular weekend evening shows sold through CityLine.

 Ms Gaw also is not too worried about 'cannibalising' existing sales with Internet ticketing, noting that in many situations - such as when users are away from home or office - buying tickets over the phone will still be more convenient.



Film box office moves on-line