Since its launch in 1984, the Urban Ticketing System (URBTIX) has become the most popular ticketing agent in Hong Kong, serving 43 regular venues with an aggregate seating capacity of over 100 000. At present, there are 33 URBTIX ticketing outlets throughout Hong Kong, 15 of which are housed in LCSD cultural venues.

URBTIX ticketing services include standard booking 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 2005, 4.37 million tickets for 7 700 performances were issued, with a total sales volume of $652 million.

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 that are available in the market to give programme promoters greater flexibility in the marketing of their events.

To meet the rising needs of event presenters and patrons, and to achieve further improvements in ticketing services, the department awarded a contract to a commercial ticketing operator 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 a round-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 will be launched in late 2006.