Since its launch in 1984, URBTIX has become the most popular ticketing agent in Hong Kong, serving 42 regular venues with an aggregate seating capacity of over 90,000. At present, there are 32 URBTIX ticketing outlets throughout Hong Kong, of which 15 are housed in LCSD cultural venues.

URBTIX ticketing services include the standard bookings-over-the-counter, reservations by phone and ticket-pick-ups at outlets, credit card telephone bookings, Internet ticketing, group bookings and postal bookings for major festivals. In 2004, some 4.13 million tickets for 7,046 performances were issued, with a total sales volume of $621 million.

	In addition to counter and telephone booking services, URBTIX also provides Internet ticketing service.

The department continues to support a free and open market for ticketing services. It allows hirers of most LCSD venues the option of using either URBTIX or other ticketing systems available in the market to give programme promoters greater flexibility in the marketing of their events.

In a move to meet the rising needs of event presenters and patrons, and to achieve further improvements in ticketing services, the department launched an open tender in 2004 to engage a commercial contractor to develop and provide a back-end ticketing system for URBTIX. The new system is expected to provide a host of more user-friendly features and benefits to users and patrons, including the provision of an around-the-clock fully-fledged Internet ticketing service, easy-to-read bilingual information displays at all URBTIX outlets to facilitate convenient seat-selection by the ticket purchasers over the counter, and expanded capacity to cater for new performance venues. The system is expected to be launched in mid-2006.