More than 110K visitors set China Lights record

More than 110,000 people from Wisconsin and the upper Midwest attended the successful second run of the China Lights lantern festival at Boerner Botanical Gardens in Whitnall Park, prompting promoters to begin negotiating for a return run of the popular show.

When all ticket sales are counted, the final attendance numbers will be 114,000 to 115,000, or 10,000 more than the 104,000 who came to the show’s first run in 2016, said Ralph Garrity, the festival promoter and president of Festival Pro LLC. The festival ran from Sept. 22 to Oct. 29.

“We would like this to come back to Boerner for a third consecutive year,” Garrity said. “We believe this is the best lantern festival attendance in the world, and the best show.”

“Our effort to make it 95% new and fresh worked,” said Shirley Walczak, the Boerner director. Only two of the 46 displays of lantern sculptures — a 200foot-long undulated dragon and mythical beasts known as Kylin — returned from 2016.

This was also the first year for the interactive pedal the polychrome pachyderm display, where children could pedal a bicycle to generate energy to light the lantern, she said.

New lantern exhibits and new lighting, as well as more interactive displays, will be negotiated for next year if the Sichuan Tianyu Culture Communication Co. in China agrees to return, Garrity said. A decision is expected in early 2018.

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.

One reason for the higher attendance this year is that more groups came to the festival grounds in buses from senior centers, colleges and corporations throughout the metropolitan area, according to Walczak. She estimated that about half the crowd had attended the festival in 2016.

The lantern sculptures illuminated 10 acres along three-quarters of a mile of garden paths at Boerner.

Tri City National Bank was the main sponsor of China Lights this year.

In 2016, Milwaukee County became the first Midwest community to schedule the event.

No estimate of the 2017 show’s revenue was available Thursday, according to Garrity.

Boerner Botanical Gardens will use its share from this year’s festival to install permeable pavers in the annual garden to help drainage there, Walczak said. Path lighting also will be upgraded.

The show is a success, too, for the gardens, she said.

“More people know where Boerner Botanical Gardens is,” Walczak said.

“We promised that China Lights would be back this year bigger and brighter than ever,” County Executive Chris Abele said. “The overwhelming response to this event exceeded even those high expectations.”