It was eight o'clock on the morning of January 1, one and a half hours before standing tickets for the National Grand Theater were to go on sale for that night's New Year Concert and already a crowd of more than 500 people milled around outside the venue's ticket office.

Despite the sub-zero temperatures brought on by a snappy wind, these Beijing classical music lovers were in high spirits. They were excited at the prospects of seeing renowned Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa in concert, but more importantly they were there to take advantage of the bargain basement ticket price-just 30 yuan ($4). This was well within the budget of even the lowest-income households in the city.

Those who buy standing tickets watch from an area provided with handrails behind the seated audience. This is the first time that the capital's newly opened National Grand Theater has sold standing room tickets at such a low price, and also the first in the concert history of Beijing. Within 40 minutes of opening, 100 standing area tickets were sold out, leaving hundreds disappointed.

Most of those who had queued up told the media that the cheap standing room ticket policy has indeed benefited low-income art-lovers. They hope the National Grand Theater could continue the policy, but also come up with a better ticketing system that will avoid crowds waiting for hours but to go home empty handed.

To avoid the crowd chaos that had happened on January 1 to reoccur, the National Grand Theater then announced that the standing area ticket policy will be a long-term one, but it will not advertise this in advance, and concert goers who are interested can get the latest ticket information via the booking hotline.

Opened to the public on December 22, 2007, the pearl-shaped National Grand Theater, the largest art performance center in the country, has become an instant new city landmark and a public favorite through its multi-layered pricing policy.

The National Grand Theater has also announced that it will offer more than 300 performances free to the public annually. Some performance rehearsals will also be open to the public. In addition, to popularize the arts the theater plans to organize low-priced lectures and training.

According to Pan Lan, Director of the Art Education and Publications of the National Grand Theater, they have arranged 33 art-related activities during the first performance season that ends early April this year, including inviting world-famous Chinese pianist Lang Lang to teach children personally.

Deng Yijing, Deputy Director of the National Grand Theater, said that the venue is not a high-class club for a small group of people, but a public cultural place that should serve all of society. Social benefits are to take priority, said Deng.

"We will try our best to enable more ordinary people to enter the Grand Theater and enjoy the classical arts and pleasant environment there," said Deng.

This spells good news for art lovers of all genres. Despite the fact that in the past decade more and more theaters have been built in China, it is still difficult for ordinary Chinese to experience art up close. High pricing is no doubt the biggest barrier, as the queues on January 1 proved.

For example, despite the average price of a ticket of the National Grand Theater being lower than that in other theatres in Beijing (this theater is subsidized by the Central Government), the highest ticket price for the 2008 New Year Concert here was still 1880 yuan ($258), higher than the average monthly income of Beijing citizens in 2006, which was 1668 yuan ($228). The cheapest seat for this concert was 280 yuan ($38), as compared to 400 yuan ($55) for the cheapest seat in other theaters at this time of year.

Xiao Fuxing, a renowned writer in China, said in one of his recent articles that there is indeed a big gap between the current performance ticket price in China and the actual consumption capacity for art of the Chinese public.

"The National Grand Theater is built based on the contribution of all tax payers, so it belongs to and should benefit all the people," Xiao said.

He also said that appreciating art in theaters is an important part of art education. "We need to have the public, especially students, appreciate and enjoy art in theaters more often and with easy access, " Xiao said.

He applauds the move of the National Grand Theater to sell low-price standing area tickets and hopes other theaters can join the move and provide more opportunities for the public to access art.