China Lights lantern festival at Boerner Botanical Gardens extended one week to Oct. 29
Don BehmThe China Lights lantern festival at Boerner Botanical Gardens in Whitnall Park will be extended one week to Oct. 29 in response to high public demand, and the show is likely to attract at least 100,000 visitors as it did a year ago, officials said Wednesday.
Due to the large volume of advance tickets already sold and not used to date, further ticket sales will be suspended Thursday through Monday to accommodate an expected weekend surge and provide those visitors with a positive experience, said Ralph Garrity, president of event promoter Festival Pro LLC.
More than 80,000 festival admission tickets had been sold, Garrity said. Beginning at 9 a.m. Monday, tickets will be sold online only at chinalights.org. From Monday on, tickets will not be available at the gate or other locations.
Only two of this year's 46 lantern sculpture displays — a 200-foot-long undulated fabric dragon and the mythical Kylin beasts — were part of the 2016 festival. The metal frame bodies of the Kylin are covered with hundreds of tiny bottles filled with colored water.
Each display has a theme, such as the 50-foot-long wall of panda lanterns and the cluster of dinosaurs that change colors.
There is a "dragon dance" exhibit with lantern sculptures of children holding up a dragon lantern. This year's "sea world" exhibit highlights jellyfish lanterns of all sizes, and a shark.
The lantern sculptures illuminate 10 acres along three-quarters of a mile of garden paths at Boerner.
Before entering the festival grounds, visitors are greeted by a 40-foot-tall tower of porcelain. More than 50,000 bowls, cups, plates and spoons were tied together to create the tower and several adjacent spires.
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More than two dozen artisans from Zigong City in the Chinese province of Sichuan arrived in Milwaukee in August to begin assembling the fabric-covered lanterns that make up the sculptures. The artisans work for Sichuan Tianyu Culture Communication Co. in Zigong.
Lantern festivals have been held in China for more than 400 years.
In 2015, the Sichuan provincial government set a goal of holding 100 lantern festivals in 100 cities worldwide within five years to promote Chinese culture. Zigong City is home to 380 lantern-making companies employing 80,000 people.
In 2016, Milwaukee County became the first Midwest community to schedule the event.
Festival hours are 5:30 to 10 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday. It is closed Monday.