Murphy Bros. Exposition, one of the largest carnival operators around the world, will stage its first carnival in the Chinese mainland in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, from Sept.15 through Nov.15.

The carnival will be at the jointly sponsorship of Murphy Bros., the Administrative Committee of Hangzhou Economic Development Zone and Hangzhou Tourism Committee, according to information from a news briefing on the event held on Friday.

Venue of the carnival will be located near the famed Qiantang River in eastern Hangzhou, a two-hour bus ride from Shanghai.

Murphy Bros. will provide outfit and operators for the carnival, and the outfit has now been shipped to Shanghai, said Steve Anderson, an executive with Murphy Bros., at a news briefing.

Cui Fengjun, deputy director with the Hangzhou Tourism Committee, one of the organizers, said the Hangzhou International Carnival will cover an area of 277,240 square meters, and is expected to draw one million visitors.

According to Anderson, Murphy Bros., founded in 1946 and with its headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma of the United States, now takes up 20 percent of the American carnival market share.

Anderson said they chose Hangzhou because they believed the city had more business opportunities than Beijing or Shanghai, where similar carnivals have been staged in the past two years.

According to Anderson, the carnival will move to Hong Kong after the Hangzhou event is over. And Murphy Bros. will remain inside China the following year, touring other big cities on the Chinese mainland.

Source: Xinhua