The annual Nantou Lantern Festival, attracting over 5 million visitors each year, is set to make its grand entrance on February 3rd! Today (26th), a promotional press conference was held in advance at the Nantou County Government Hall, where the 2024 main lantern “Fortune Dragon Arrives” was unveiled at a 1/12 scale. New-generation singer and actor Wang Pin-hao performed the new theme song – YOU ARE THE ONE, specially created for the main lantern. Additionally, popular IPs “LAIMO the Malayan Tapir” and “Swoosh Cat” made a surprise appearance at the event, supporting the Nantou Lantern Festival.
This year’s 2024 Nantou Lantern Festival, themed “Radiant, Livable City,” will run from February 3rd to 25th, featuring 3 main themes across 11 lantern areas, along with experiences including Lantern Festival, water dance theater, brand exhibitions, bamboo art sand sculptures, and landscape flower seas. Aiming for an all-age-friendly, cross-collaboration, and curated approach, the festival seeks to create a shared lantern experience and showcase the city’s livability. Following last year’s successful collaboration with the famous IP “Kanahei’s Small Animals,” this year, the evergreen domestic IP and Asia’s most beloved black-and-white creature, LAIMO the “Malayan Tapir,” takes the baton. The festival will feature a dedicated thematic lantern area and a drone show with 500 drones forming Malayan Tapir-themed patterns over Nantou. Highlights include a nearly seven-meter tall secondary theme lantern, 11 balloon lanterns in various New Year’s designs, and exclusive commemorative merchandise, capturing the “adorably lawful” charm of the black-and-white Malayan Tapir for collectors. In collaboration with IPs, the festival also teams up with the beloved Swoosh Cat to create a water-based secondary lantern combined with a drone show for a spectacular water dance performance, adding another highlight to the Nantou Lantern Festival. At today’s (26th) press conference, “Malayan Tapir” and “Swoosh Cat” made special appearances alongside Nantou Deputy County Magistrate Wang Rui-de and other dignitaries to unveil this year’s main lantern “Fortune Dragon Arrives,” featuring a dragon and phoenix spiraling around mountains, with the dragon emitting smoke and performing a 360-degree mechanical dynamic display alongside the phoenix. The performance will be accompanied by Wang Pin-hao’s new theme song – YOU ARE THE ONE, with a magnificent main lantern show every half hour during the festival.
This edition of the festival introduces several distinctive lantern areas, creating a new layout for the Nantou Lantern Festival as an important platform for city marketing. The Welcome Light Condensation area combines art curation, innovatively using street graffiti as a medium, in collaboration with “Shen Bo Li Jian Art Planning.” The festival invited DEBE, a pioneer of Taiwanese graffiti art for nearly 20 years, and three international graffiti artists COLASA, BLACK, Creepy Mouse, along with large mural artist Chen Yu-an, to form a heavyweight art team. They will blend graffiti with installation art and audio-visual effects to showcase Nantou’s characteristic scenery in a trendy and impactful way. The Bamboo Dream Golden Sand area highlights the festival’s uniqueness, combining Nantou’s signature bamboo art with sand sculptures and flower landscapes to create a fantastical experience. The festival also welcomes corporate sponsorships, with Taiwan Life Insurance showcasing lanterns themed around Sun Moon Lake, cherry blossoms, and the mythical white deer, echoing the Lunar New Year of the Dragon, encouraging everyone to pursue their dreams boldly. Beyond the stunning lantern areas, the festival plans thematic exhibitions, performing arts, traditional lantern areas, water dance drone shows, and more, ensuring a fulfilling New Year for visitors.
The festival continues to offer smart guides, with real-time push notifications of lantern area guides for visitors, alongside a digital stamp collection activity. This activity links with attractions in Nantou’s thirteen towns and villages, allowing visitors to collect stamps and redeem exclusive “LAIMO the Malayan Tapir” and festival co-branded commemorative coins, red envelopes, and merchandise by completing specific tasks and spending NT$500 in Nantou.
Nantou County Magistrate Hsu Shu-hua stated that the Nantou Lantern Festival, now in its 9th year, continues to create a unique theme festival different from other counties by incorporating diversity, innovation, and art over the past three years. The community, indigenous tribes, junior high and elementary students, and corporate units in the county have come together to create lantern areas. With the Lunar New Year approaching, she welcomes everyone to celebrate the spring festival at the Nantou Lantern Festival and enjoy flower viewing and hot spring trips to Nantou’s towns and villages.
The Nantou Lantern Festival is an annual festive event in the county, drawing over 5 million visitors each year as a central region’s hallmark event. To accommodate travelers from other counties and cities, the festival will offer shuttle services from Taichung High-Speed Rail Station to the Nantou Lantern Festival for lantern viewing from 16:30 to 19:30 during the festival period. For more information on the festival, visit the Joyful Travel Nantou Facebook page – Joyful Travel Nantou or the official Nantou Lantern Festival website at https://rs-event.com.tw/2024NTL/.
Top 10 Highlights of the Lantern Festival
Highlight 1: “Adorably Lawful”
Asia’s most beloved black-and-white creature – LAIMO the “Malayan Tapir” as the Year of the Dragon’s mascot Following the successful endorsement by Kanahei’s Small Animals in the Year of the Rabbit, LAIMO the “Malayan Tapir” has been invited to take over the role, bringing its black-and-white charm to Nantou! A 500-drone light show will display “Malayan Tapir Enjoys Nantou,” along with a special area in collaboration with the Nantou Lantern Festival. A nearly 7-meter tall giant secondary theme lantern, 11 large balloon lanterns themed around Nantou’s seven major tourist axes, and co-branded commemorative coins, red envelopes, sticky notes, notebooks, and portable mirrors will be introduced. Both the opening and Valentine’s Day will feature surprise appearances at the Nantou Lantern Festival, with brand stores presenting new products of Malayan Tapir and Swoosh Cat.
Highlight 2: “Traditional Lantern Art Combined with Dual Mechanical Dynamics”
13-meter tall main lantern “Fortune Dragon Arrives,” symbolizing prosperity and auspiciousness Themed around the zodiac sign of the year, “Dragon,” and integrating the imagery of mountains surrounding Nantou, the lantern depicts a dragon spiraling around the mountains, protecting Nantou alongside a phoenix and butterflies, bringing auspicious meanings. The performance uses high-tech mechanical dynamics, with the dragon and phoenix rotating 360 degrees, the phoenix flapping its wings, and the dragon emitting smoke, all accompanied by light and shadow design. The display is set to the new theme song “YOU ARE THE ONE” by the up-and-coming singer Wang Pin-hao, with a spectacular main lantern show every half hour.
Highlight 3: “Glamorous Water Dance Show Featuring Five Elements”
Swoosh Cat’s water-based secondary lantern X Water dance performance X Electronic symphony X Drone fireworks show In collaboration with IP Swoosh Cat, a water-based secondary lantern is created, combined with a water dance performance, matched with an electronic symphony rewritten by Golden Bell Award-winning music producer Fan Yang-jing, and a 500-drone fireworks show (Malayan Tapir plays in Nantou theme), showcasing a grand performance across water, land, and air for 900 seconds!
Highlight 4: “Innovative Breakthrough”
Graffiti art meets the Nantou Lantern Festival in the Welcome Light Condensation themed area The Welcome Light Condensation area merges art curation in collaboration with “Shen Bo Li Jian Art Planning,” gathering four internationally renowned street artists, DEBE, COLASA, BLACK, Creepy Mouse, and large mural artist Chen Yu-an, to create with their unique street visual art culture and expertise, showcasing the touristic characteristics of Nantou as a livable city, and integrating installation art, audio-visual effects, and interactive installations for a trendy, youthful, and impactful visual experience.
Highlight 5: “Nantou Lantern Festival Exclusive”
Bamboo art X Sand sculpture X Flower sea to create a fantastical experience in the Bamboo Dream Golden Sand area Set against a vast flower sea and combining Nantou’s signature bamboo art with sand sculptures and floral landscapes, the three themed exhibition areas present the diversity of nature, merging art and nature with nighttime lighting facilities, adding a touch of romance at night.
Highlight 6: “Heavyweight Diversity”
A lineup of star-studded performances and diverse programs as a New Year’s feast The New Year’s special performance spans eight days, from the opening weekend on 2/3 and 4, from the second to the fifth day of the Lunar New Year (2/11-14), and the last two Saturdays of the exhibition period (2/17 and 24). This year features eight major performance themes to meet the needs of all ages, including famous trendy singers like Gao Er-xuan, RĒD° (Reid), Taiwanese pop queen Zhang Xiuqing, electronic dance queen Xie Jinjing, and double gold song king Shen Wencheng, lighting up the venue with star power. Additionally, there are stunning performances by internationally acclaimed Yunhuo Dance Troupe and the upcoming Chengzhen Fire Dance Troupe, special effects shows, Joyous Symphony Orchestra, Hsinchu Symphony Orchestra, local diabolo teams, Zen drum teams, and indigenous dances, offering a highly diverse program lineup during the festival.
Highlight 7: “Day and Night Fun”
Flower sea train, SUP, fireworks… Fun from day to night The Nantou Lantern Festival presents different aspects day and night, with daytime activities like riding a small train through a flower sea, SUP stand-up paddleboarding, and purchasing Nantou specialties in exhibition spaces. At night, the lights transform the area into a dazzling spectacle, with lantern viewing, performances, water dances, and drone fireworks shows, welcoming visitors from all counties and cities for a full day of fun!
Highlight 8: “Integration of Old and New, Enjoyment for All Ages”
A diverse lantern area experience for all age groups Under the tourism capital axis, starting from the image of a livable city, the lantern area planning adopts an inclusive approach, integrating old and new, to create a lantern area experience enjoyable for all ages, allowing every age group to discover fun, photogenic, and beautiful elements at the Nantou Lantern Festival. Besides planning diverse thematic content, the lantern areas also cover traditional and innovative zones, appealing to the city’s cultural brand and showcasing the essence and characteristics of Nantou’s urban and rural areas, meeting the needs of all ages.
Highlight 9:”Digital Stamp Collection”
Malayan Tapir X Nantou Lantern Festival: Rich co-branded festival merchandise waiting for you Visitors can receive real-time push notifications about the lantern area guide as they explore, and simultaneously participate in a digital stamp collection activity. This activity links with attractions in Nantou’s thirteen towns and villages, allowing visitors to collect stamps and redeem co-branded commemorative coins, red envelopes, and merchandise (notebooks, sticky notes, portable mirrors, badges) with Malayan Tapir and the Lantern Festival upon completing specified tasks and spending NT$500 in Nantou.
Highlight 10:”Three Ways to Play with Eco-Friendly Mini Lanterns”
Committed to energy saving, carbon reduction, and sustainability, Nantou County has created this year’s mini lantern – “Dragon in the Sky” with an environmental spirit! Replacing LED batteries with “light source power cables” to avoid recycling issues and environmental pollution. The “light source power cable” is a cable with a TYPE-C plug on one end and an LED light bulb on the other. Inserting the TYPE-C end into a phone or portable power source will light up the bulb without the need for batteries. The power cable can also be reused. The mini lantern can be assembled with two handles for three different shape transformations, allowing people to assemble it in various ways according to their preferences.
