Across Europe, familiar paths are preparing for a magical transformation after dark. Larger-than-life animals, luminous gardens and imaginative characters will turn zoos and parks into colourful worlds that visitors can step into, explore and remember.
Behind the scenes at China Light Festival, preparations for the new season are already well underway. New concepts are being developed, production has started, and our teams are preparing eight new festival editions across Germany, France and Belgium.
From October 2026 to March 2027, returning partners and new destinations will be transformed through handcrafted lanterns, light and storytelling. Each event is designed around its own location, audience and surroundings, creating a different experience at every stop.
Building on last season
Every new season begins with what we learned from the previous one. In 2025, China Light Festival produced five festivals in Belgium, France and Germany, welcoming more than 300,000 visitors.
The settings ranged from zoos to parks and nature destinations. Each offered a different landscape, route and atmosphere. Rather than serving only as a backdrop, the venue becomes part of the design and helps shape the stories visitors encounter along the way.
Long-term partnerships continue to develop as well. At Les Terres de Nataé in Brittany, attendance grew by more than 50% from 2023 to 2024, followed by a further increase of around 25% in 2025. In two years, the festival’s audience almost doubled.
Our partner at Les Terres de Nataé has been very pleased with the development of the event and the collaboration behind it. Together, we look forward to building on that progress in future editions.
Returning to a venue gives our team a deeper understanding of how people move through the site, where the setting creates the strongest impact and how the programme can evolve from year to year.
From sketch to illuminated installation
For visitors, the experience begins when the lights go on. Behind that moment are months of design, craftsmanship, technical development and coordination.
Every installation starts with a concept developed around the venue, theme and visitor route. Once the artistic design is approved, the team prepares full-scale technical drawings that translate the idea into a structure that can be built safely and accurately.
Experienced artisans then shape the framework by hand. Thick steel rods form the main structure, while finer wire is used to model expressive details: the features of a face, the movement of an animal, or the curve of a flower and its leaves. Working from the inside out, the team gradually turns a two-dimensional drawing into a three-dimensional figure.
Electricians install LED strips, bulbs and the systems required for changing light, movement and interactive effects. Digital tools, including AI-assisted programming where appropriate, help coordinate colour transitions and lighting sequences across more complex groups of lanterns.
Next, a female-led team carefully stretches and attaches silk fabric over the framework, giving each figure its first layers of colour and texture. Finally, highly skilled artists, many with a fine arts background, use spray painting and hand-finished details to add depth, expression and character.
Traditional Chinese lantern craftsmanship remains at the heart of the process, supported by contemporary design and technology. The result is not simply a series of illuminated objects, but a complete experience shaped around the location itself.
Eight destinations across Europe
The 2026/2027 season begins in October and continues through the final weeks of winter:
• Schwerin Zoo, Germany: 9 October to 29 November 2026
• Lumigny Safari Reserve, France: 15 October 2026 to 3 January 2027
• Parc Animalier de la Barben, France: 17 October 2026 to 3 January 2027
• Les Terres de Nataé, Brittany, France: 23 October 2026 to 10 January 2027
• ZOO Planckendael, Mechelen, Belgium: 30 October 2026 to 3 January 2027
• Halle Zoo, Germany: 4 December 2026 to 28 February 2027
• Cologne Zoo, Germany: 12 December 2026 to 31 January 2027
• Zoo Kleve, Germany: 5 February to 27 March 2027
Together, the eight festivals will take China Light Festival through three countries and a wide range of settings. Each venue will offer its own atmosphere, route and interpretation of the lantern experience.
Familiar partners and new stories
Returning to a familiar venue does not mean repeating the same festival. Themes, installations and routes are reconsidered for every edition, giving visitors a reason to return and allowing the creative team to approach the location from a new perspective.
Last winter in Halle, for example, visitors encountered a fantasy setting filled with fairies and creatures of different sizes. This season, the same paths and landscape provide the starting point for an entirely new programme.
This balance between continuity and change is important to our work. Existing partnerships allow ideas to develop over time, while new destinations bring different environments, audiences and creative possibilities. In both cases, the design process begins with the same question: what can we create specifically for this place?
We also listen closely to visitor feedback. It helps us refine themes, strengthen individual details and improve the way people move through each festival. Our aim is to create an evening that feels engaging from beginning to end, and a winter memory that visitors will want to share and revisit.
The season is taking shape
The first designs for 2026/2027 are now moving from drawings into production. Over the coming months, steel frames will be shaped, fabrics applied and painted, lighting installed and completed pieces prepared for their journey across Europe.
Before each opening, the installations will be positioned and tested on site. Paths that visitors know in daylight will gradually become a sequence of illuminated scenes, shaped by the character of the location.
With eight events in three countries, there will be many opening nights ahead. We look forward to switching on the first lights in Schwerin this October and welcoming visitors into a new season of light.
Interested in exploring how traditional lantern artistry and modern technology could come together at your venue? Get in touch with our team and let’s explore the possibilities together.
