The government selected an audience for the special performances of
North Korea's Samjiyon Orchestra through a lottery at 4:00 PM on
February 5. A total of 780 people were randomly selected from each age
group, from a total of 156,232 applicants (two tickets provided per
person, 1,560 total audience members).
* Number of people selected for the performance
Gangneung: 280 (for a total of 560 tickets)
Seoul: 500 (for a total of 1,000 tickets)
o Online application period: Feb. 2 (Fri) 12PM ~ Feb. 3 (Sat) 12PM
o Result of application: Total of 156,232 applicants:
- Applicants for performance
Gangneung: 39,109 (one out of 139 selected)
Seoul: 117,123 (one out of 234 selected)
o Time of lottery drawing: Feb. 5, 4:00 PM
- Lottery drawers: Officials from the Ministry of Culture, Sports
and Tourism; the Ministry of Unification; the Korea National Ballet;
and one official from Interpark
- Members present: Two police officers from Seocho Police Station
o Method of selection: Computer program-based lottery drawing for
equal share among age groups for both Gangneung and Seoul performances
Considering that a large number of people applied for the tickets,
the government decided to reduce the number of invitees to allocate
more seats to regular citizens, increasing the number of people
selected from the original plan of 250 selectees to 500 selectees
(from 500 seats to 1,000 seats for the audience).
The list of those selected was posted on the online ticketing site
of Interpark on Tuesday, Feb. 6 at 10:00 AM, and the selected were
notified of the news via text messages to their phones.
The tickets will be distributed to them at the theater, starting two
hours before the performance. Tickets are non-transferable and those
selected must present their ID at the site themselves (resident
identification, driver’s license, foreigner registration card, etc).
The Gangneung Arts Center in Gangneung and the National Theater of
Korea in Seoul will call each of the selected to check whether they
will actually attend the performance. The selected may choose to come
to the performance alone.
The selected should familiarize themselves with notes regarding
things to be aware of when watching the performances, posted at the
ticketing site of Interpark.
A theater official advised to “arrive at the theater on time, using
public transportation, since the ticket booth can be very crowded on
the day of the performance.”