Hong Kong Palace Museum ‘ready to be fully opened’ on July 2, with security checks in place
- Visitors to pass through metal detectors at entrance and belongings to be scanned; daily shuttle service around West Kowloon Cultural District available
- More than 70 per cent of tickets for July sold, with all free entry slots for the month also booked
The Hong Kong Palace Museum is set to open its doors on Saturday, having sold more than 70 per cent of tickets for next month and received a final shipment of national treasures loaned by its counterpart in Beijing.
Unlike M+, the other flagship museum at the West Kowloon Cultural District, visitors to the Hong Kong Palace Museum will have to undergo security checks at the entrance on the ground floor, passing through metal detectors upon entry while backpacks and other belongings will be screened by an X-ray detection machine.
“We have been working overnight to place the artefacts in our exhibition halls, everything will be placed in display cabinets tonight and our exhibitions will be ready. We are confident that the Palace Museum is ready to be fully opened on July 2,” museum director Dr Louis Ng Chi-wa said.
Visitors are required to buy tickets for entry. About 100,000 tickets for July – 60,000 for general admission and 40,000 for special admittance – were already sold by last Sunday, less than two weeks since sales began on June 14.
The general admission tickets, each priced at HK$50 (US$6.40) for adults, will allow visitors to take in seven exhibitions, while the special tickets at HK$120 each cover all nine exhibitions.
The museum will be open to the public for free on Wednesdays during its first year of operation. Slots for free entry in July were booked out by last Sunday, the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority said.
The museum will release tickets for the first week of August on July 12, along with additional tickets for July 12 to July 31.
When asked about the unprecedented security checks, Ng said the arrangements were jointly devised with the Beijing Palace Museum to protect artefacts on loan from the capital.
