Terracotta Warrior lanterns to light up Perth streets following ’impressive’ museum exhibition

Perth’s Terracotta Warriors are about to march onto the streets in the form of life-sized lanterns, expanding the already successful museum showcase.

All of 80 brightly-coloured lanterns will descend on Forrest Place from Friday night, in the same shape and size as the terracotta warriors already placed in the museum.

The lanterns made their first public appearance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and will adorn Forrest Place until November 9 before moving to Elizabeth Quay until late November.

They will then move to WA Museum Boola Bardip in time for the Christmas Lights season until the end of February.

The lanterns are on loan from Beijing Chaoyang International Cultural Exchange Association and build off the warriors themselves, which are also on loan from China.

Roger Cook said the expansion would build off the already successful display.

“Few places in the world have got the size and the breadth of the Terracotta Warrior exhibit that we have here in Western Australia,” he said.

“It’s an absolute coup, people are coming from all over the world to experience this exhibition, and it’s great to be here today to celebrate its success.”

The expansion comes following a successful start to the exhibition, with number of museum visits already close to exceeding the estimated figures for the full eight-month show.

So far around 160,000 people have come to see the warriors and another 170,000 are estimated to visit in the coming months.

Initially it was expected 180,000 people would turn up to see the statues.

A quarter of visitors have been from out of State and 11 per cent have been from overseas.

Western Australian Museum chief executive officer Alec Cole said the exhibition was a wild success.

“This is easily going to be the most popular exhibition the museum has ever staged, certainly the most impressive,” he said.

“I don’t think we should underestimate the international importance of it in terms of building those relations.

“The museum is building relationships with a number of Chinese institutions and we hope that we’ll be seeing more amazing content here from China.”