HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach Newswire – 14 October 2025 - During the National Day holiday, the Hong Kong SAR Government partnered with various sectors to launch a series of cultural and leisure initiatives aimed at celebrating the festive season with the public. Among these, the "Half-Price Movie Day" campaign, organized by commercial cinemas citywide on October 1, sparked a surge in demand. Several cinema ticketing systems experienced unprecedented traffic spikes within a short timeframe, leading to long queues and congestion, with estimated wait times reaching up to 99 minutes. In contrast, cinemas such as Emperor Cinemas and Cinema City demonstrated operational resilience, maintaining stable system performance under heavy traffic and delivering a seamless seat selection and ticketing experience for customers. This stability was underpinned by the robust capabilities of Damai Entertainment's Fenghuang Yunzhi iCIRENA smart system.

Fenghuang Yunzhi is a digital cinema management platform developed by Damai Entertainment, currently deployed across 5,600 cinemas in mainland China, where it holds a leading market share. In March 2024, drawing on of its extensive experience in the mainland film market, Damai Entertainment launched iCIRENA — the international version of Fenghuang Yunzhi — at the Hong Kong International Film & TV Market.

iCIRENA's strong performance during the National Day cinema surge can be attributed to its native cloud-based architecture and advanced algorithmic technology. The platform overcomes the technical limitations of traditional cinema management systems, delivering significant improvements in data processing efficiency and overall system performance.

A cinema manager using the iCIRENA smart system said: "The system performed exceptionally well, particularly during the presale for 'Half-Price Movie Day', when many other cinemas experienced long queues and system outages. iCIRENA delivered a seamless ticketing experience, which undoubtedly boosted our sales performance." Another cinema staff member added: "The stability of iCIRENA far exceeds that of our previous system. Its core strength lies its real-time responsiveness to market dynamics, enabling us to adjustment screening strategies on the fly based on live data." Additionally, iCIRENA's comprehensive functionality has enhanced the cinema's broader "Movie+" business operations. "With iCIRENA, customers can conveniently purchase popcorn and snacks online, further increasing our revenue."

The performance disparity between cinema systems during this National Day period underscores a growing technological divide in the film industry's digital transformation. The digital management model exemplified by iCIRENA not only enhances system performance and user experience in ticketing operations, but also paves the way for broader innovation and technological advancement across the sector. As audience expectations for online ticketing continue to rise, stable, efficient, and intelligent systems are becoming essential to a cinema's competitive edge. iCIRENA's success during the "Half-Price Movie Day" campaign offers a replicable blueprint for digital upgrades, potentially accelerating the development of smart cinemas throughout Hong Kong.