Entertainment with added value
- Source: Global Times
- [10:05 July 29 2010]
- Comments
Subscription membership cards from Shanghai theaters. Photos: Courtesy of SCH and SDAC
By Hu Bei
Clever theatergoers in Shanghai are getting better value for their tickets through the membership subscription schemes offered by major performance venues. The schemes offer their members a range of advantages including preferential bookings, discounted tickets and invitations to celebrity lectures and special events.
In Shanghai the major performance venues, the Shanghai Grand Theater (SGT), the Shanghai Oriental Art Center (SOAC), the Shanghai Concert Hall (SCH) and the Shanghai Drama Art Center (SDAC), have well-established membership subscription schemes.
With the colorful cards the schemes allot to their members come a variety of advantages and most cards are available for free.
The Shanghai Grand Theater located near the People's Square in downtown Puxi, is a comprehensive performance venue with three theaters, each capable of staging traditional, classical or experimental productions.
Two years after the theater was opened, it established its membership scheme in 2000, the earliest subscription scheme of the four major venues.
Just buying a ticket at one of the booking offices at the theater or filling in an application form can open the door to the SGT's membership scheme.
The scheme initially attracted more than 100,000 members to the SGT but these days only about 10,000 make use of the scheme.
"The membership now is a stable group who regularly take part in activities organized by the SGT, like attending lectures by visiting experts and our art open days," said Xu Yin, the deputy general manager of the SGT.
Recently professor Tao Xin, of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, lectured on the upcoming production of La Boheme and German Wagner expert Uwe Eric Laufenberg, the director of the Cologne Opera House, lectured on the Ring of the Nibelungs which will be staged there in Sep-tember.
Xu said the membership scheme has been running for nine years, offering expert lectures, art open days and a monthly art magazine. But the SGT has been designing a new membership scheme which will be launched at the end of the year.
