Letters | Given Hong Kong’s smart-city dreams, Urbtix should switch to e-ticketing
- Readers discuss why the Urbtix system should evolve away from physical tickets, and what younger people think of Chinese opera
Firstly, the use of printed tickets has been retained without sufficient ticketing kiosks. Users are still required to go to designated venues or kiosks to collect tickets if they buy them online. The government press release stated that there would be “new self-service ticketing kiosks, which support both ticket purchase and collection, at Urbtix outlets located at various performance venues and major LCSD museums”.
The unspoken fact is that the number of ticketing counters or self-service ticketing kiosks remains at seven on Hong Kong Island. Also, kiosks are not necessarily located at every performance venue.
For example, Xiqu Centre of the West Kowloon Cultural District, which has been a venue for the Hong Kong Arts Festival, does not have a kiosk. This begs the question: if the existing system of printed tickets is not serving the public well enough, why not make provision for an electronic ticketing system?
Secondly, with the new system, users have to pay a HK$9 or US$1.15 handling fee per ticket bought online. (Before the upgrade, users had to pay HK$8 per ticket.)
The press release cited above also stated: “Customers do not need to pay any handling charges for tickets bought at the self-service ticketing kiosks and counters of Urbtix outlets.”