If you live in Memphis and drive a car than I’m sure you’ve heard the advertisements for the Lantern Light Festival. Always on the prowl for different date nights I secured tickets for Shaun and I to go the first weekend they were open but sadly I’m just now getting around to sharing. We got ours on groupon for $15 each which left us money for food to keep this a $40 date but tickets are currently $20 each and the festival is in town through May 21st.
The lanterns are actually large figures made out of silk with lights inside providing the illumination.
The 400 ft dragon
lantern walkway
Dater night selfie
When we first entered I was a little disappointed because it didn’t seem like much but once we followed the dragon we found a section tucked away from the parking area where all of the lanterns were displayed.
Overview of the lantern area
Memphis display
lots of opportunities for cheesy photo ops
this tunnel represented all the seasons, I think I’m in fall in this pic
Shaun being a good sport
I don’t want to show y’all too many pictures because that would ruin the fun if you do go. I will say they are fun and cool to look at but I also think the radio ad is a bit dramatic. There seems to be a lot of winter themed lanterns so I have to wonder if this started as a Christmas time exhibit.
We ate dinner before attending but there were several food vendors there and they had several activities for the kids. There was also a stage where Chinese acrobats preformed and that was pretty cool.
Do I think the event itself is worth $20 a person? Not really, but I was really nice to be able to do something different and there’s value in new experiences. We were at the festival for about 1.5 hours but we didn’t sit to watch the acrobats so we could have made it a longer trip.
If you’re looking for something different to do this month I recommend checking it out.