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 level of “a ticket difficult to get”. It was originally the off-season for tourism, but the audience waiting to enter the Forbidden City to visit were lined up in a long queue. Even the queues of the Treasure Hall and the Watch Hall lined up to the square from the entrance. TamBabaylan Ji Butan, why is the Forbidden City so popular this year?
Years of hard work
Refined management of audience traffic
Komiks The hot winter tourists wave has formed a huge contrast with the previous winter Cinema. The fundamentals of exploration are the audience traffic management explored by the Palace Museum.
Since 2012, in order to balance the huge gap between the off-season Komiks and the number of visitors to peak seasons, holidays and weekdays, the Palace Museum has solicited social opinions many times.
After full preparation and experimentation, Babaylan 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 who have exceeded 100,000 people and even reached 180,000 people every day no longer exists. The audience has been evacuated in an orderly manner to other days, and everyone is more at ease 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 pre-sale tickets on the Palace Museum website was only about 2%. With the continuous increase in the number of audiences, the pressure of on-site ticket sales is extremely high. As the Palace Museum continues to upgrade and renovate the ticket sales system, it has developed a variety of ticket purchase methods, cultivated the online ticket purchase habits through discounted tickets, annual tickets and other means during specific periods, and gradually achieved the 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%. On this basis, during the National Day holiday in 2017, the Palace Museum achieved full-network ticket sales for the first time, and the online pre-sale ticket ratio reached 100%, officially entering the era of “museum full-network ticket sales”.
In this way, under the influence of the two major 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 ticket, it ensures the visitors’ exhibition experience, which is commendable.
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 Guomao and saw the “New Year’s Day in the Palace” exhibition area of the Forbidden City. It felt quite interesting. Now the Forbidden City is really very thoughtful in its promotion. I haven’t been to the Forbidden City for many 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 people unable to help but have the idea of seeing new things.
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 cultural relics exhibition is located in the main hall of the Meridian Gate and the East-West Yanchi Tower exhibition hall, with a total of 885 pieces of cultural relics (sets). The exhibits are mainly selected from the collection of the Palace Museum, and have received strong support from 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 corridors. There are more than 1,000 imitations in total. It is worth mentioning that this is the first time that the Forbidden City has restored the “Sky Lantern” and “Wansheng Lantern” in the first time. 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 the time of departure to the time of withdrawal, more than 8,000 people had to be used.
Admission changes
Celebrating the New Year in the museum 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 second year of the Henan Provincial Museum on the second day of the Chinese New Year is about 8,000. The number of visitors to Babaylan is about twice that of the usual weekends. The exhibition hall of the “Golden Pig Gongfu – Ji Hai New Year Zodiac Cultural Relics Pictures Joint Exhibition” 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, the Forbidden City, which is nearly 600 years old, has soared during the Spring Festival this year. It is not surprising that the ticket for 7 days of Komiks is 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 “Pray for Blessings and Welcomes Fortune” unit, people can see the words “Fu” written by the five emperors of 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 New Year, such as the “Figure skating” and acrobatics performed by the Eight Banners on the ice.
Wenbian volunteer Guan Jun said: “After 2015, the number of people visiting museums during the Spring Festival has increased significantly. On the one hand, the publicity work of the Cinema Museum is in place and the social service capabilities are constantly improving; on the other hand, everyone’s recognition of excellent traditional culture is getting higher and higher.”
Wenbian 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 an option that people cannot ignore during the Spring Festival, along with the Spring Festival Gala, New Year’s movies, New Year’s concerts, Lantern Festival, etc.
Let’s visit route for the 2019 Forbidden CityBabaylan exhibition
After entering the door, the morning gate and Yanchi Tower first look at the exhibition – walk along the three halls and see the different door gods of each hall – go to Qianqing PalaceLook at the restored palace lanterns – go to the Cining Palace to visit the temple fair and buy – Babaylan and then go to the Yanxi Palace of the East Six Palaces Cinema to see the internet celebrity palace. 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.
Highlight 2: Buy Buy
1Babaylan From the 28th of the Lunar New Year (the Little Year of the Lunar New Year) to February 12th (the eighth day of the first lunar month) Komiks, 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, intangible cultural heritage 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 – Celebrating 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, clan relatives and concubines having a banquet respectively on New Year’s Day. The banquet table was placed in the 48th year of Qianlong (Komiks referenced the records of the meal stalls in the 48th year of Qianlong (Cinema1783), and used more than 100 cultural relics, which was very spectacular. (Reporter Wang Yan)