A 17-acre light display and lantern festival called "Global Winter Wonderland" will exhibit its creations in Sacramento this holiday season.
Displays include a holiday village, a fantasy forest, the seven continents, and a dinosaur maze. Rick Pickering is the CEO at Cal Expo and says he expects a lot of people to turn out for the large metal and silk-covered creations.
"You'll be able to see it from the Capital City Freeway for folks going home from work. We're excited," Pickering says.
Kari Martin with International Culture Exchange says about 100 tons of metal and 200,000 feet of Chinese silk will create the framework for the lanterns.
"We have manufacturing happening in China months and months before where they are planning the structures and the lanterns and we have a creative director who's planning the layout and the customer experience in advance. The actual on-site development happens for about six weeks before hand."
Sixty Chinese engineers, steel workers, and artists will be flown in to set up the displays. A hundred local people will be hired to staff the festival for six weeks.
This will be the fourth year for the Global Winter Wonderland festival. It has been staged in previous years in Santa Clara and Atlanta.
The event has drawn a total of 1million visitors during the past three years. The company behind the display says if the Sacramento event draws 300,000, this year, it will return next year.
The festival opens on November 22nd and will close January 4 of next year.
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