MKE County: The Big Business Behind a Decade of China Lights

200-foot-long dragon at China Lights festival. Photo by Jeramey Jannene. For the company behind the annual China Lights festival at Boerner Botanical Gardens, Chinese lanterns are big business. Tianyu Arts Culture is a global company with offices in China, the U.S. and Europe. The company began as a startup in 2014. Its U.S. business has grown from four festivals in 2015 to 44 festivals across 12 markets in 2024. Over the past decade, Tianyu has put on more than 200 lantern festivals that have drawn more than 14 million visitors. The festival first came to Milwaukee County in 2016. Then-County Executive Chris Abele hailed it as a great success. Milwaukee County Parks had counted visitors from 44 states and Washington, D.C. The success meant a new source of revenue for the department. Over the decade that followed, the department would need to generate even more revenue to make up for tightening county budgets. The 2026 festival, Legends Come Alive, began in September and features mor