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If you tend to get overwhelmed by the huge number of performances and movies showing at different venues in the capital, a new integrated information system providing updates on cultural events, and even notices on the availability of cheap tickets, is coming your way.

Five new alliances were founded earlier this month, providing a common platform each for the capital's theaters, museums, publishing houses, cinemas and relevant companies. The idea is to keep cultural aficionados updated about the city's culture scene as well as offer a few lucrative deals.

"We hope the cultural alliances will lead the capital to be a real center of culture," said Beijing Mayor Guo Jinlong.

Since January, 25,700 shows were put up at Beijing's theaters, big and small, a huge increase compared to 19,000 in 2010, said Xiao Pei, director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture.

"The unprecedented prosperity of the market requires the theaters to offer better service, to keep pace with that growth," said Xiao, also chairman of Capital Theaters Alliance.

The alliance will build a new platform for disseminating information to newspapers and websites, and help reconstruct theaters and support the creation of excellent performances, Xiao said.

Pang Wei, of the Capital Cinemas Alliance, says the city now has 117 cinemas with 609 screens and 113,000 seats, a two-fold increase from five years ago.

"This year the cinemas had 873,000 screenings, which will bring in an income of 1.3 billion yuan ($205.5 million) by the end of 2011," Pang said. "It's a big business now."

She said the alliance would mark special days when different groups of people would be able to get half-price tickets. The alliance would also push for supervision of ticket selling by the theaters, to resist the circulation of fake tickets.

"We'll develop a new integrated network system for ticketing and have individual cinemas as members," she said.

According to Beijing municipal government, 30 theaters in Beijing, including Poly Theater, Capital Theater and Century Theater, will offer low-price tickets to audiences - in the 20 to100 yuan range, starting next year.

"Due to the high venue rent and labor costs, performance ticket prices are out of reach for most audiences. Many people cannot afford tickets costing several hundred yuan," says Wu Ran, an official from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture.

Wu said the government would take measures, such as offering subsidies to theaters, to reduce ticket prices.

"We will make sure that 20 percent seats at each performance will be available at a lower price," he said.

Capital Theater, for example, will offer tickets priced at 40 yuan to students and National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) will offer tickets in the 100 to 200 yuan range for each performance.

According to Wang Wei, director of the marketing department at NCPA, low-priced tickets, from 50 to 100 yuan, are already on offer for each performance at NCPA. In 2011, nearly 100,000 people bought tickets for less than 100 yuan to watch performances at NCPA.

Wang Yijun, of the Capital Publishing Alliance, said they were planning to usher in a new "reading season" to the capital, by releasing a series of publications at the time of literary festivals and giving a boost to reading activity, along the lines of similar events held in Europe.

Questions:

1. Who is forming an alliance for cultural events?

2. What is the purpose?

3. How many cinemas are in the capital?

Answers:

1. Beijing's theaters, museums, publishing houses, cinemas and related companies.

2. To keep cultural aficionados updated about the city's culture scene as well as offer good deals.

3. The city now has 117 cinemas with 609 screens and 113,000 seats.

（中國日報網英語點津 Rosy 編輯）

About the broadcaster:

Nelly Min is an editor at China Daily with more than 10 years of experience as a newspaper editor and photographer. She has worked at major newspapers in the US, including the Los Angeles Times and the Detroit Free Press. She is also fluent in Korean.