On the evening of April 19^th, the NCPA “Live Simulcast” was launched with NCPA drama commission LIN Zexu presented synchronously via UHD live on screens at 25 theatres, over 100 cinemas and two colleges in many provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities of China thousands of kilometres away including Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Hainan Province and Harbin City, benefiting an audience of 25,000.

From the Gobi Desert in Xinjiang to the Coconut Grove in Hainan, the audience, living thousands of miles away, could enjoy the drama LIN Zexu at their doorstep without traveling far. By combining stage art with technology, the NCPA Live Simulcast aims to provide an immersive audiovisual experience. The elegant art is thus able to break through spatial limitations while high-quality cultural resources become accessible to the common people, making it possible to promote cultural consumption “through thousands of screens in hundreds of cities across the China”.

As a national cultural platform, the NCPA is invariably committed to innovating for providing ever-better cultural services. According to WANG Ning, Secretary of CPC Leading Group and President of the NCPA, the NCPA Live Simulcast, a product of hard work that boasts combined use of HD video broadcast, Dolby Atmos, intelligent commentary and other advanced technologies, is so far a livestreamed performance in China that covers the largest region, interacts with the greatest number of cinemas and theatres and involves the most complex collaborative techniques.

LIN Zexu, a co-production of the NCPA and Guangzhou Dramatic Arts Centre, was streamed live this time. The drama has both a profound historical connotation and a high artistic value. Since its premiere in 2019, the drama has been performed for over 50 times in its seven rounds, and toured many places as a masterpiece with all tickets sold out . The year 2025 marks the 240^th anniversary of LIN Zexu’s birth. By reconstructing the history of “Destruction of Opium at Humen”, the drama eulogises the national hero’s righteous and patriotic heart in homage to the history and in response to the contemporary spirit.

A trailor was played at the beginning of the “Live Simulcast”. In the pre-theatre part, the hostess ZHOU Tao had talks with the stage director WANG Xiaodi on behalf of the “Live Simulcast”, showing the audience more highlights that they couldn’t even appreciate on the scene.

On the raked stage full of light and shadows, there appeared images of the Yellow River and Yangtse River, telling the story of “Destruction of Opium at Humen”. Precise multi-camera capture allowed the audience to clearly feel the profound connotation of the stage settings. During the intermission, the camera once again turned to the behind-the-scenes space, where PU Cunxin, XU Fan, GUAN Dongtian and other artists shared with the hostess their on-stage feelings, showing the audience what was happening behind the stage, how they were busy putting on makeup, changing makeup or changing costumes and what else they were doing for the second half. The choreographer HUANG Doudou explained how a body language was designed for key scenes. In the second half, the actors' delicate performances, music and lighting brought the dramatic conflict to a climax. The audience burst into prolonged applause at the end.

Since the launch of the NCPA “Live Simulcast” - Hundred-City Thousand-Screen Programme, this practical cultural event, one with technology as the wings and art as the core, has opened up a new way for benefiting the people at the cultural level.

With the support of the supervisors Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology and Beijing Municipal Radio and Television Bureau, co-organisers China Film Co., Ltd., China United Network Communications Co., Ltd. Beijing Branch and Beijing Zhonghe Ultra High Definition Collaborative Technology Center Co., Ltd., and local theatres and cinemas, the NCPA can share its high-quality masterpieces of stage art with the whole country through the Live Simulcast.

As a performing arts centre with three locations, the NCPA has set up a cultural transmission network connected to more than 20 theatres and over 100 cinemas across China. From Hainan to Xinjiang, the elegant art has surmounted spatial barriers, making the entire country able to watch a livestreamed performance together as if they were “close neighbours”. This will help to effectively promote high-quality cultural resources to benefit the common people in a digital way.

There are affordable tickets for the Live Simulcast, allowing a wider audience to enjoy high-quality cultural resources. There are also outreach performances sponsored by the Arts Development Foundation of NCPA. In Hotan, Xinjiang, 4,000 km away from Beijing, the “Live Simulcast” was watched by more than 2,000 local cadres and common people of different nationalities and more than 200 cadres sent to aid Xinjiang from Beijing, Tianjin and Anhui province. The Hainan Performance Arts Group carried out publicity and education in the form of “art + education” on the livestreaming scene. The office staff of the Hainan Provincial Ban Drugs Commission was also invited for live publicity and education on drug control. The “Live Simulcast” was also watched by drug control volunteers and drug police in Dalian and other places, too. Additionally, a 20-day “NCPA Selected Stage Artworks Exhibition” was held at the Jinhua Brilliant Milky Way Arts Centre, where young people from Taiwan, China shared with the national audience how their souls were excited by a strong sense of national pride.

As a pioneer in artistic innovation, the NCPA keeps digging deep into the field of “art + technology” and innovating the form of performance. For the Live Simulcast, a complete UHD livestreaming system has been established using a homemade platform and technical solution.

The NCPA has actively developed a set of standard procedures for the Live Simulcast. In the future, the NCPA will be active in summing up experience and data to standardise the network environment, data parameters and workflow for the livestreaming of stage art, so as to provide practical industry standards for the Chinese theatres and cinemas involved in the Live Simulcast. MA Rongguo, Vice President of the NCPA, said that the NCPA has long been committed to building a digital cultural communication platform. After streaming stage art live to the world on 4K+5G and 8K+5G screens and launching an ‘online performance’ in 2020, the NCPA has achieved another great leap in ‘art + technology’, by which we practise in benefiting the people at the cultural level.

“Too far away, hard to buy a ticket, difficult to find a good play” … These are problems faced by the audience and theatres. Over 90% of the seats were occupied in each of the more than 20 theatres involved this time. The launch of the “Live Simulcast” has made it possible to solve these problems in a new way. Many audience members left a comment, “I was finally given a chance to watch LIN Zexu, a long-anticipated drama.” Many others marvelled at the charm of the Live Simulcast, giving favourable comments on social media, “First time to watch such clear pictures, even the tears in the eyes of the artists can be seen, as if we were VIP guests at the theatre!” Affordable tickets and high-quality experiences have made art something common in daily life. The positive audience feedback shows that they appreciate the Live Simulcast, which is not simply a way of applying technology, but a way of precisely meeting needs by serving the public with art.

Over the years, the NCPA has remained true to its original aspiration of practising the idea of “art for the people”, so that every feedback from the audience inspires it to continue its exploration in the field of “art + technology”. From the first attempt to stream stage art live to the world on “4K and 8K+5G” screens to the regular livestreaming of “online performance” every Saturday night and to the innovative launch of the “Live Simulcast”, the NCPA keeps marching forward along the road of innovation to benefit more people in the form of “art + technology”. This nationwide behaviour, with theatres and cinemas joined up across mountains and seas for live broadcasting, is not only a technological breakthrough, but also a vivid interpretation of how to boost cultural consumption and make high-quality cultural resources accessible at the grassroots level. In the future, six live performances will be put on every year under the NCPA Live Simulcast with diverse genres of art to be presented in series under various themes.