The Asian Lantern Festival is an annual event hosted and held at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. The Asian Lantern Festival is a walkthrough and interactive event that includes performances from acrobats and hat jugglers, large-scale displays, walkthrough tunnels, interactive lights and screens, and animatronics. The festival displays are visible during the whole day for zoo visitors but best shine and stand out at night.
The event is popular and draws crowds. Each year The Asian Lantern Festival pulls in a crowd of about 150,000 people according to This is Cleveland. Throughout its 6-year span, over 1 million people have attended, breaking records for this kind of lighting display. According to WKYC 3, the event was extended for an additional two weeks through September 14. The zoo also added a new event called Wild Ride–offering guests a chance to ride bikes through the displays.
Food and snack stands, most specializing in traditionally Asian cultural foods (items such as Bao, wonton, stir fry, and dumplings) are featured throughout the zoo.
Some of this year’s most noteworthy displays included
- The 50ft tall pagoda.
- Stunning lantern displays, like the blooming gardens.
- A shocking dinosaur exhibit with large moving animatronic dinosaurs and a smokey volcano.
- Beautiful overhead, walkthrough lantern tunnels.
- And a Chinese zodiac path that shows you what your Chinese zodiac is by what year you were born.
According to the zoo, The Asian Lantern Festival is an affordable event that ranges from $24 for an individual ticket and $73 for a family four-pack for non-members. Members get discounted tickets ($21 and $63).
News articles, journalists, and some guests rave about the event. A review from TripAdvisor says, “The amount of work that went into this beautiful display is commendable. So much to see throughout the entire zoo.” A Yelp review says, “It’s hard to put into words how beautiful it is; some of the displays were so breathtaking I just stood there in awe. This is something we will definitely do every year.”
Shannon Saunders, an MMS teacher states that she goes to The Asian Lantern Festival every year with her children to enjoy the atmosphere, the lights, the music, and the food. “The experience of being at the zoo at night is pretty cool,” she said. She added that the moving light displats and walk-through tunnels are her favorite and also said, “My children love the swings, interactive drums, and the touchscreens.” She said that they always begin with the show, which features trick artists.
Though most guests rave about The Asian Lantern Festival, some have some opposite opinions. Ellen Zhang, an MMS student who attended the Asian Lantern Festival says that it is like a commercial stereotype of Asian culture. She compares it to a show or movie when someone walks into a Mexican-related place they would play Mexican music and give them a big hat and some maracas. She notes, “It’s not necessarily cultural appropriation; it’s just not accurate.”
If you didn’t get a chance to see it this year, don’t worry! The Asian Lantern Festival is an annual event. It runs through almost the whole month of August mostly leading into September.
