I visited the Louisville Zoo last fall, and I liked it so much, I came back for the Asian lantern festival they hold in the spring! Wild Lights at the Louisville Zoo is happening from March 19 – May 30, 2021. And while this is a popular event, the Louisville Zoo does a great job with Covid precautions, with a one-way path through the zoo and timed-entry tickets. The later in the evening you go, however, the less crowded it is.
Lantern Festivals
The tradition of lantern festivals – the kind with hanging paper lanterns lit from within – is a Chinese end-of-year celebration. Which, on our western calendar occurs during the spring. (The kind of lantern festivals where you light the bottom on fire and send it into the air or down a stream with a wish for your future is more of a Japanese late-summer thing, if not a southeast Asian one. But I’m far from an expert.)
The Louisville Zoo trades paper for silk, since you can reuse those year after year (and they hold up better in the rain.) And most of the lanterns are in animal shapes, fit for a zoo setting. In fact, this seems to be a zoo sort of thing to do, with similar figures at different zoo events. So check out zoos in your area and see if they do anything similar!
Wild Lights at the Louisville Zoo
There are thousands of these figures at the Louisville Zoo, one of the biggest of its sort in the country, I understand. 70 of them are new just this year! (I think they were the dinosaurs. They looked the newest.)
There’s a one-way path through the zoo, moving in the opposite direction as you would go during the day. There are tunnels of light to walk under and through, even a T-Rex to be swallowed by! (I mean, it’s just a tunnel but being “pooped out” the other end is hilarious to me.)
Some areas are themed more than others. There is a section with undersea creatures like fish and an octopus and another with desert creatures among cactus, like a huge tarantula and a snake. All the dinosaurs march up a hill to the top where you get swallowed by the T-Rex. My favorite is a bunch of velociraptors running from a T-Rex, just like in Jurassic Park!
Other figures are near their real-life counterparts, like snow leopards around the snow leopard section and polar bears in the polar bear section, et. al. But mostly, figures are scattered around where they fit.
A fun play area near the end has photo ops and play areas for kids. Including a mirrored light-room thing that was really cool! There are also three very intricate Chinese mythological creatures whose lanterns shift color as you watch.
And a lot of these lanterns move! Heads move, alligators and dinosaurs chomp, a peacock’s LED tail changes color, birds tweet and flutter. A blue whale wriggles above the lantern waves. Then there’s a whole King Kong guy (or at least the top part of him.) and a HUGE red robot who powers up and powers down in a 2-3 minute cycle.
Over the whole thing plays a sort of generic “Asian” soundtrack, which honestly, gives me major Epcot vibes (in the best way.) In the tunnels is more upbeat music and I swear I noticed an English folk tune around the Pandas…but mostly it’s the same soundtrack everywhere.
My Experience
I booked a ticket with an 8:15 pm entrance time, which was right around sunset. And it was pretty crowded! It was hard to get pictures with all the people (and the people’s children) standing in the way. Like my first visit to the zoo, I went around again and it was much more empty.
It takes about an hour to tour, more or less. I will say, that even starting my second trip around 9:30, I ran into a crowd at the kid’s area/photo ops section near the end. I seemed to have caught up with the previous wave.
Overall, it was really cool! Some of the lanterns are a little scruffy-looking but the overall experience is really fun. Now, one thing that I loved about the zoo the first time is how inexpensive it is. The Wild Lights event costs a bit more – $20 per person plus $6 parking per car. And discount packs of four can be had. But ALL tickets have to be bought in advance and they often sell out! Even on a Monday night like my visit.
If you get a chance to go – to this one or one like it – I would encourage you to go! It’s delightful, whimsical, and a fantastic outdoor activity everyone can enjoy.
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