More than 70 theaters from across the country signed an agreement in Beijing recently to form the China International Theater Union in a bid to boost the performance industry via e-commerce.

China has more than 3,000 theaters and about 10,000 art troupes that produce a total of 50,000 stage performances annually, according to Li Jian, general manager of new1001.com, who was named the union's president.

But Li said there's been a lack of interaction between the art organizations. The result is, art troupes with high-quality productions worry about where to put on shows, while elsewhere, some theater houses try hard to fill in their vacant schedule.

The union thus aims to solve the problem via new1001.com, which has performance-industry information from across the country that encourages cooperation and also attracts investment from enterprises that have an interest in the cultural industry.

"By increasing the number of performances nationwide, we hope we can effectively reduce the country's ticket prices so that audiences can actually benefit from this project," said Ke Ping, Hangzhou Theater manager.