About 30,000 people have visited the Bamboo Theatre at the West Kowloon cultural hub in the six days since its opening.And the West Kowloon Cultural Authority's chief executive, Michael Lynch, said yesterday there are plans to stage the popular Bamboo Theatre each year in the future "Great Park" while the Xiqu Centre for Chinese opera is being built.
The 800-seater temporary Bamboo Theatre opened on Wednesday and will remain until February 16 on the site of the Xiqu Centre.
"We've already sold 98 percent of tickets for performances," Lynch said in a webcast of an authority board meeting. "It will almost be a sell-out."
He said many of the visitors wanted to see the Xiqu Centre exhibition and the Bamboo Theatre and to visit 35 art stalls.
The temporary structure - designed like a traditional Chinese opera theater - presents a diversified program to draw both young and old.
"Almost 30,000 people visited in the first six days - it's been taken to the hearts of the community," said Lynch, adding it will be the last time for it to be held on the site of the Xiqu Centre, to be commissioned in 2016. Last Sunday, 6,000 visitors went to the site, many of them tourists.
The board chairwoman, Chief Secretary for Administration Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, said the HK$150 million pledged by Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying in his policy address to strengthen the training of arts administrators in the next five years is a one-off funding.
But funding is expected to be expanded.
