Lighting up the summer night sky
St. John’s Lantern Festival heading into its 17th year
The 17th annual Lantern Festival will be held today in Victoria Park in the west end of St. John’s from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The event will include kids’ activities, a yoga class, a jar lantern-making workshop, local musicians, a barbecue and cotton candy. After sunset, the lanterns will light up the park in a special installation. The evening will conclude with a fire and light show.
The festival, which started in 2001, was originally intended to be a one-off event, inspired by a similar festival put on by the Public Dream Society in Vancouver, who one of the board members of the Friends of Victoria Park knew about. It quickly became clear that there was a desire for it to happen again the next year, and a tradition was born.
During the festival, lanterns are used to make the underground river in Victoria Park appear to come alive on the surface.
Chair of the Friends of Victoria Park board, Michael Evoy, says one of his strongest memories from the festival is how a piece of the lantern he built for the first one is still being used nearly two decades later.
Despite happening only one day a year, the festival has a long build of bi-weekly workshops for the eight weeks leading up to the event.
In the 17 years the festival has been taking place, the lanterns themselves have grown larger and more creative. Lanterns have taken on the shape of Cabot Tower and the Hibernia oil platform.
The Lantern Festival, being an entirely free event, has been able to bring together a large cross-section of the community, and celebrates the inclusion of many cultures in the city.
The first year of the festival saw a couple of hundred people over the course of the day, but it has grown to approximately 2,500 people, with some 800 in the park at any given time.
Evoy said the event has come to hold an important place in the heart of the community, and has become a tradition that parents who attended in the early years of the festival have passed on to their children.
Evoy recounted the story of a couple who met at the Lantern Festival, and 11 years later were engaged at the festival.
For their wedding reception, they borrowed some of the lanterns that brought them together.
He said the festival is about the people, and making them happy.
The Lantern Festival relies on the support of the City of St. John’s as well as private sponsors and donations.
In case of rain, the festival will be held Sunday.