Children's, Student and Senior Tickets for The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: The Discount Rules Explained Once and For All

“Is there a student ticket?” “Does my child need a ticket?” “Can seniors get a discount?” These three questions come up most often in enquiries. The answers are slightly counter-intuitive, so here they are all at once.

The Conclusion First

The Song of Everlasting Sorrow is a commercial performance: there is no student ticket, no senior ticket, no military ticket, and no group discount of any kind.

The price has only three dimensions: zone (Central / East-West A / East-West B) × showtime (first show through fourth show) × list price or coupon price. The ticket type “children’s ticket” does not exist.

How Children Are Counted: By Height, Not by Age

This differs from most performances, so be sure to remember it:

Height	Does a ticket need to be bought?	Is there a seat?
1.3 metres or under	Free entry	No seat; a guardian must accompany throughout, one child per adult
Above 1.3 metres	A ticket is required for entry	Seated according to the zone chosen

A child entering free still has to be registered under the ID system (the guardian fills it in on their behalf); they simply do not have to pay.

The official wording is one sentence: free for those at or under 1.3 metres, one child per adult ticket holder. The 1.2 metres circulating online is either the old rule or a different show. Measure your child before you leave — on this 1.3-metre line, one centimetre makes all the difference between buying a ticket and not.

Do Seniors Get a Discount

No. Performance tickets are priced by zone and showtime alone, with no distinction by age.

The venue, however, is outdoors on a hillside with plenty of slopes and steps, so viewers with limited mobility are advised to arrive early and ask the on-site staff for assistance. Care for your safety is more substantial than care for your ticket price.

Do Military Personnel, Teachers or Medical Staff Get a Discount

No. That kind of discount generally belongs to scenic-area ticket policy and does not extend to The Song of Everlasting Sorrow performance tickets.

(If your main aim is to tour the Huaqing Palace scenic area, there really are scenic discounts there such as student and senior tickets — but that is another ticket, and a different matter from the performance ticket.)

How Many Can One Person Buy

With the same valid document, at most 1 performance ticket per visit day, counted across all platforms and not repeatable (one person, one document, one ticket).

So for a family to see the show, everyone needs their own registered details and their own ticket; the idea of one ticket bringing the whole family in does not work.

Why the Rules Are This “Hard”

Because of the ID system: ticket, document and person must all match, and entry is by swiping the document. It is this tight in order to prevent ticket scalping and hoarding — for anyone buying honestly, filling in the details properly and turning up on time means not one bit of trouble throughout.

Practical Advice

• With children: measure the height first, then decide whether to buy; for a child entering free, the details still have to be reported to the customer service in advance;
• With elders: prefer a seat by the aisle in Central, to walk less;
• Students: there is no student ticket, but you can choose a later showtime (the last show is one tier cheaper than the first) plus East-West A (one tier cheaper than Central); the two together can save over a hundred, and that is the most real way to save;
• Groups: have everyone’s document details ready in advance, because filling them in on site wastes a lot of time.