(Yicai Global) Feb. 6 -- Zigong, a southwestern Chinese city that is in charge of making 95 percent of lantern festival equipment around the world, is pressing on with new technologies after enjoying a rebound in demand during the 2023 Chinese New Year.

Zigong, which has been creating lanterns for over 1,000 years, has enabled 60 lantern exhibitions around China, including those of the Xi’an City Wall and Shanghai’s Yu Garden, during the Spring Festival holiday that ended in late January, Yicai Global learned. The city generates four-fifths of all lanterns sold in China.

During the holiday, the Zigong-China Colored Lantern World welcomed 310,000 visitors, up by 54 percent from the festival a year ago, so on the second day, the event venue had to start limiting daily ticket sales due to crowdedness.

Over the past two years, the number of tourists at the park has been constantly growing, said Song Qingshan, chairman of Zigong Cultural Tourism Investment and Development. On New Year's Eve, when the park used to be closed, the number of visitors unexpectedly exceeded 20,000 people, he added.

Glittery Tech

One of this year's highlights in Zigong is the use of new materials so that lanterns can glitter not only at night, according to Song. For example, a lantern shaped like game character Great Steam Golem from League of Legends is even more beautiful during daytime because of its metallic texture. With earlier technologies, this would have been totally unimaginable, Song explained.

The festival was tech-oriented as light displays were making use of virtual reality or autostereoscopy to add 3D features, and even human-computer interaction, said Huang Lei, dean of the School of Fine Arts at the Sichuan University of Science and Engineering.

By December, 60 Chinese municipalities, including Shanghai and Nanjing, had revealed their plans to hold lantern festivals to celebrate Chinese New Year and attract tourists. The surge in demand was noticed in the manufacturing hub. "Such popularity has not been seen for years," said Deng Peilin, chairperson of a leading lantern maker in Zigong.

Lantern Economics

The sector is a lifeline for the city. Zigong, which has a population of around 2.4 million people, has more than 1,000 lantern companies that generate over CNY5 billion (USD737.6 million) in output value. Company representatives tend to travel to more than 50 countries each year to help arrange shows.

The city attracts young talent with high pay as each project requires many artists and a designer might make up to CNY600,000 (USD88,508) per year, according to Huang. Senior lantern artists could earn more than CNY1 million (USD147,514).

The city's core business is at a crucial stage of upgrading and transformation, several interviewees said. In the future, Zigong will strive to make clients apply lanterns in more scenarios and innovate in materials and design, they added.

"The world is increasingly demanding workmanship, inner meanings, as well as creative ideas regarding colored lanterns," said Huang Dechun, head of a chamber of commerce for lantern businesses in Zigong. For this, the industry needs to have a global vision and integrate itself with more high technology, Huang added. 

Editors: Liao Shumin, Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi