May Pang's Asian Media Internet News

The sixth installment of the Harry Potter series “The Half-Blood Prince” had a screening in Urumqi, Xinjiang at noon Wednesday July 15th which was the day of the global premier.

On July 5th, a riot broke out in Xinjiang in People’s Square over a conflict between Han Chinese and Uighur workers at a toy factory in Shoaguan, Guangdong. A reported 184 died while over 800 people were injured. This riot took place a block away from the People’s Cinema where the screening of Harry Potter took place. The movie was supposed to show at noon but the cinema managers changed the time to 11:00AM on Wednesday due to safety concerns.

The theater can hold up to 760 seats. The cinema management predicted to sell 200 to 300 tickets but only 63 were sold. China is still suffering in these terrible economic times and some are still cautious to approach the area.

Although Urumqi, Xinjiang has suffered in box-office sales, elsewhere in China it is expected to break the box-office record set by Transformers.

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