The “New Year’s Day and Happy New Year – Celebrate the New Year in the Forbidden City” exhibition started on January 6th was extremely popular during the Spring Festival, and the Forbidden City even reached the point where “it is hard to get a ticket”. It was originally the off-season for tourism, but the audience waiting to enter the Forbidden City to visit Cinema lined up in a long queue. Even the Treasure Hall and Watch Hall lined up from the entrance to the square Komiks. The off-season is not slow, why is the Forbidden City so popular this year?
Years of hard work
There is a huge contrast to the previous winter tourists. The fundamentals of exploration are the audience traffic management explored by the Palace Museum.
Since 2012, in order to balance the huge gap between off-season and peak season, holidays and weekdays, the Palace Museum has solicited social opinions many times.
After full preparation and experimentation, starting from June 13, 2015, the Palace Museum has officially implemented the flow restriction measure of 80,000 people per day. At this point, the extreme peak of visitors with more than 100,000 people and even 180,000 visitors per day did not exist again, and the audience was evacuated in an orderly manner to other days, so everyone was more relaxed when visiting the Palace Museum.
Effective control and refined management of audience traffic are also reflected in online ticket sales. From 2011 to 2014, the proportion of online pre-sale tickets at the Palace Museum was only about 2%. With the continuous increase in the number of visitors, the pressure of on-site ticket sales is extremely high. As the Palace Museum continues to upgrade and renovate the ticket sales system, develop diverse ticket purchase methods, cultivate audiences’ online ticket purchase habits through preferential tickets, annual tickets and other means during specific periods, and gradually achieve continuous increase in the proportion of online ticket purchases. In 2015, the proportion of online pre-sale tickets reached 17%. In 2016, the proportion of online pre-sale tickets reached 41%. Based on this, the Palace Museum achieved the full results for the first time during the National Day holiday in 2017.With online ticket sales, the proportion of online pre-sale tickets reached 100%, officially entering the era of “museum full-network ticket sales”.
In this way, under the influence of the two powerful tools of “current limit” and “online ticket sales”, the Forbidden City can deal with the “big test” of 80,000 people in several days. Although those who want to see have to bear the pain of no tickets, it guarantees the visitors’ exhibition experience, which is worthy of praise.
This year’s highlight
Promoting the “New Year’s Day in the Forbidden City” exhibition
This year, the Forbidden City launched the “New Year’s Day – Happy New Year’s Day in the Forbidden City” exhibition for the first time, which has also become the direct reason why citizens and tourists are flocking to it.
Ms. Hu, a citizen, went there on the first day of the Lunar New Year to see the exhibition. “A few days ago, I visited the International Trade Center and saw the exhibition area of the Forbidden City’s ‘Court New Year’ in the Palace Museum. It felt quite interesting. Now the Forbidden City is really very thoughtful in its promotion. I haven’t been to the Forbidden City for a few years, so I took my son to the Forbidden City.” Ms. Hu’s words are indeed very representative. In recent years, with the development and promotion of the Forbidden City’s tourism cultural and creative products and the emphasis on online marketing, the ancient Forbidden City has brought new vitality, making it difficult to find fresh ideas.
A Beijing Youth Daily reporter learned that the “New Year’s Day – Celebrating the New Year in the Forbidden City” exhibition is divided into two parts: cultural relics exhibition and real-life experience. The exhibition of cultural relics is located in the main hall of the Meridian Gate and the East-West Yanchi Building. A total of 885 pieces of cultural relics (sets) are exhibited. CinemaThe exhibits are mainly selected from the collection of the Palace Museum, and are strongly supported by China’s National First Historical Archives, Shenyang Palace Museum and other units.
The real-life experience part includes the entire open area of the Forbidden City. The exhibition will fully demonstrate the New Year customs of the Qing Dynasty with six major themes: “Praying for blessings and welcoming good fortune, worshiping ancestors and filial piety, serving relatives and family, working hard and having fun, and having fun in the world”. There are spring couplets and door gods that symbolize auspiciousness hanging at the door of the palace, and gorgeous palace lanterns are decorated under the corridor.A total of more than 1,000 imitations were used. It is worth mentioning that this is the first time that the Forbidden City has restored the “Sky Lantern” and “Wansheng Lantern”. The lanterns and the lanterns of life were one of the most grand activities during the Chinese New Year in the early and mid-Qing Dynasty. From establishment to withdrawal, more than 8,000 people were used.
Admission changes
Celebrating the New Year in museums becomes fashionable
According to Xinhua News Agency, during the Chinese New Year, many museums across the country ushered in a peak of crowds. The number of visitors to the Henan Provincial Museum on the second day of the 1st day of the 1st day of the 1st day of the 1st day of the 1st day of the 1st day of the 1st day of the 1st day of the 1st day of the 1st year of the Henan Provincial Museum, about twice the average weekend. The exhibition hall of the “Golden Pig Gongfu – Ji Hai New Year’s Zodiac Cultural Relics Pictures” attracted countless visitors; in the Six Dynasties Museum in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, the “schedule” of the New Year in Old Nanjing is also eye-opening. As the most treasure-rich and influential museum in the country, nearly 600 Komiks, Komiks, the Forbidden City is soaring during the Spring Festival this year, and it is not surprising that the tickets for the 7-day holidays were booked early.
Shan Jixiang, director of the Palace Museum, introduced that the “New Year’s Day – Celebrating the New Year in the Forbidden City” has been launched for more than 20 days, and the average number of visitors per day has exceeded 20,000. In the “Blessings and Welcomes Xiang Xiang” unit, people can see the word “Fu” written by Emperor Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing and Daoguang; the “Dunqin and Mu Clan” unit restores the scene of the emperor and his clan relatives and concubines having banquets on New Year’s Day; the “Entertainment and Entertainment” unit reproduces various entertainment activities of the ancients during the Chinese New Year, such as the “Fengqin and Sports” athletes performing “figure skating” and acrobatics on the ice. Guan Jun, a volunteer of the cultural museum, said: “After 2015, the number of people visiting museums during the Spring Festival has increased significantly. On the one hand, the museum’s publicity work is in place and the social service capabilities are constantly improving; on the other hand, everyone’s recognition of excellent traditional culture is becoming increasingly high.”
Cultural museum experts believe that the concept of “celebrating the New Year in the museum” has gradually matured and formed a brand. Visiting museums during the Spring Festival is becoming increasingly popular with the Spring Festival Gala, New Year’s concerts, Lantern Festival, etc., has become an option that people cannot ignore for celebrating the Spring Festival.
KomiksTraveling around the 2019 Forbidden City Exhibition Tour
After entering the door, the morning gate and the winged building first look at the exhibition – walk along the three halls and see the different door gods of each hall – go to the Qianqing Palace to see the restored palace lanterns – go to the Cining Palace to visit the temple fair and buy – and then go to the Yanxi Palace of the East Six Palaces to see the Internet celebrity palace Babaylan. At the same time, there are also the newly renovated Treasure Hall and Watch Hall in the eastern region, which will definitely make you excited!
Focus 1: Palace lanterns and door gods
Door gods can be seen everywhere, and palace lanterns are mainly concentrated in the Qianqing Palace. Researchers in the Forbidden City not only found the usage, history, and the detailed dimensions of the sky lanterns and wanings in the literature, but also found lamp body models, lamp couplet samples, and original lamp poles in various warehouses, restoring the “sky lanterns” and “wanings” that have disappeared for nearly 200 years for the first time. Cinema
Highlight 2: Buy Buy
From January 28 (the Little Year of the Lunar New Year) to February 12 (the eighth day of the first lunar month), in the Cining Palace Garden and the square outside the Cining Gate, 145 time-honored Chinese companies from 10 provinces (cities) in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Henan, Anhui, Jilin and Shanxi will display special food, silk clothing, daily necessities, study supplies, jewelry and jade, cultural and creative products, and non-Babaylan legacy crafts, etc. The New Year cultural and creative culture of the Forbidden City can also be bought here!
Highlights 3: Visit the New Year’s Elegance Exhibition
The “New Year’s Day – Celebrate the New Year in the Forbidden City” exhibition will be held at the Meridian Gate, East Yanchi Tower, and West Yanchi Tower. For example, the “Duanqin and Family” unit displays the scene of the Emperor of Heaven and the Clan and the Clan and the Concubines having a banquet respectively on New Year’s Day. The banquet table is placed in reference to the records of the meal stalls in the 48th year of Qianlong’s reign (1783), and more than 100 cultural relics were used, which is very spectacular. (Reporter Wang Yan)