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Asian Lantern Festival 2025 - Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

Blog Date
Author(s)
Julie Smith
Stuart O. Smith, Jr.
Tags
Cleveland
Cleveland Metroparks
Zoo
Asian Culture

. . . summer’s popular Asian Lantern Festival presented by Meijer, at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo through Sunday, August 24. Experience the wonder of Cleveland Metroparks Zoo illuminated after dark, featuring live acrobatic performances every hour on the Fifth Third Bank Stage and a variety of culturally inspired cuisine at the MetroHealth Asian Food Market.

Additional highlights include a four-story-tall hydrangea and butterfly tree, walk-through tunnels and uniquely themed areas including Animals of the Nile presented by CrossCountry Mortgage as well as ocean creatures, botanical gardens and more. In addition to the walk-through experience Thursdays through Sundays from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., the Asian Lantern Festival Drive-Through Experience returns on select nights.

Asian Lantern Festival at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Glows On – Extended Through September 13
Posted: August 11 , 2025
. . . The Asian Lantern Festival extension includes 14 additional nights for guests to experience all-new, large-scale lantern displays, . . . “Due to overwhelming demand, we’re thrilled to extend this unique after-hours event, allowing even more guests to explore the magic of the lantern displays and new additions like Dragons Landing, complemented by a dozen illuminated dragons, including a 100-foot-long ‘ice and fire’ dragon display,” said Cleveland Metroparks Chief Marketing Officer Kelly Manderfield.

We were fortunate that the eighth annual Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Asian Lantern Festival was extended beyond its original August 24th end date, since we had just returned from our second trip this summer (see our travel blog post: Exploring New Hampshire, Vermont, and the USS Enterprise!). Nine years ago, we enjoyed a similar event in Columbus, Ohio, during the winter (December 30, 2016, Ohio Lantern Festival at the Ohio State Expo Center and Fairgrounds), but we had never attended this annual Cleveland summer event. We put together this blog post to show the good time we had when we visited the zoo with our sons on the evening of Saturday, August 30, 2025.

 

 

Live Acrobatic Performance

Live performances can be seen during Walk-Through nights at 6:45, 7:45, 8:45, and 9:45 p.m. Each performance will total approximately 15 to 25 minutes and occur at the Savanna Theater inside the Zoo.

We remembered enjoying an acrobatic show many years ago at the Ohio Lantern Festival, so we were very pleased to learn that the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Asian Lantern Festival also had live acrobatic performances. When we arrived, a very helpful zoo volunteer approached us to recommend that we see the show first, while it was light outside, and then tour the zoo's lanterns after the show as dusk approached. We really appreciated her making a point of giving us this good advice, and directing us to the Savanna Theater.

In our video, note how the masked performers' face decorations change as they proceed through their dance. At first, none of us could figure out how this was done, but soon after the show, our son, Michael, thought he figured it out. (We did find a video, The secret behind China’s face-changing art, that confirms that Michael was mostly correct. You might not want to know the secret until you come up with your own theory of how this magic is performed!)

We recommend viewing videos in full screen mode.

 

 

Illuminated Zoo

The event starts at 6:30 p.m. and ends at 10:30 p.m.

On Walk-Through nights, guests may enter at any time after the start of the event and stay on the grounds until 10:30 p.m. . . .
. . .
Lanterns are placed across several destinations of the Zoo including the Welcome Plaza, African Savanna, Wilderness Trek, Asian Highlands, Waterfowl Lake and more. Along the event pathway, some animals may be less visible at night, and depending on their needs, they may stay out of public view during the evening. Oftentimes, elephants, tigers, bears, and snow leopards may be seen. Best viewing likelihood is before 8:00 p.m.
. . .
Are these the same lanterns as last year? No. This year's festival features 70 large-scale illuminated vignettes featuring thousands of individual lanterns.
. . .
The Eagle Zip Adventure and Circle of Wildlife Carousel, will be open during the Walk-Through nights of the festival, separate tickets required.
. . .
Most lanterns are located throughout the lower portion of the Zoo along an approximate 1.5-mile paved path.

It was fun seeing the lanterns at the time when daylight melts into evening darkness, and the lights become more brilliant. In addition to the lighting displays, we were fortunate to see the elephants, Amur tigers, grizzly bears, and wolves.

We were glad to see that the Wolf Wilderness area was open and that the zoo provided an infrared camera to view the movement of the wolves in the darkness. Mike and Julie had seen the renovated Wolf Wilderness Lodge when they visited the zoo in May 2025, but this was the first time Kevin and Stuart saw the expanded space. We believe this is the first major change to be made since the Wolf Wilderness area opened in 1997. The new configuration allows for private parties to use this improved, beautiful space.

When we reached the all-new Dragons Landing, which opened at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo on May 2, 2025, we had a family discussion on whether or not the zoo was the correct place for an exhibit about mythical animals. Most of us liked learning about the mythology of the different dragons, since the zoo provided signs to explain the history of each of the dragons' legends. Being part of the Asian Lantern Festival had the added benefit of the unique nighttime lighting. Stuart was in the minority view that a zoo should focus on real animals, currently alive or extinct (like the former dinosaur exhibit that used to occupy this area of the zoo). Stuart was concerned that zoo visitors might confuse myths with reality. A quick search of the Internet will confirm Stuart's suspicion. The following are quotes that we found on websites reflect what some Americans believe:

  • "Dragons were considered real creatures . . ."

  • "Before the word dinosaur (which refers only to land-dwelling creatures) was invented in the 1800s, the word dragon was used. Exhibits . . . explain how that means all dinosaurs are dragons, but not all dragons are dinosaurs. . . . Dragons as depicted both today and in ancient times in artwork, . . . look an awful lot like dinosaurs (or marine reptiles or pterosaurs). Could it be that the artists behind these depictions were drawing a real-life animal they’d seen with their own eyes?"

  • ". . . historical artifacts . . . provide compelling evidence of man’s past interactions with dinosaurs."

  • ". . . humans and dinosaurs once roamed the earth together only a few thousand years ago."

In today's world of fake news and attacks on science, Stuart believes that the zoo should be presenting only exhibits supported by the research of legitimate museum and zoo staff. While the zoo's signs explain the mythology, people often don't read them, and the placement of the dragons in the spot where dinosaurs used to be might confuse visitors.

Human–dinosaur coexistence
. . .
The historical and ongoing coexistence of humans and avian dinosaurs (birds) is well established and documented. The coexistence of humans and non-avian dinosaurs, however, exists only as a recurring motif in speculative fiction, owing to the fact that humans and non-avian dinosaurs have never coexisted at any point in the history of Earth.[1]
. . .
Many Young Earth creationists believe that non-avian dinosaurs coexisted with humans.[12][13] Since Young Earth creationists believe the Earth to only be a few thousand years old, their worldview is incompatible with the scientific understanding of geological history and the fossil record.
. . .
Some proponents have claimed that mythological reptiles such as dragons and the Behemoth are historical descriptions of dinosaurs.[15][16][17] Although many modern depictions of dragons share certain similarities with dinosaurs, this is a recent artistic development spurred by the discovery of dinosaur fossils in the nineteenth century onwards. Earlier depictions of dragons tended to have far fewer such similarities, for instance being less bulky and more serpentine.[18]
. . .
Many hoaxes have been presented as historical depictions of dinosaurs and have been used as evidence for the idea that non-avian dinosaurs coexisted with humans.

The Asian Lantern Festival had interactive displays, and while we were writing this blog post, we learned that there were more interactive exhibits this year than in the past. We had fun standing on sensor platforms and hitting large buttons that activated the displays.

It was great that the festival was much larger than we expected. We enjoyed the event, and expect that we will go again in the future.

We hope you enjoy the photos and videos from our visit, and that they encourage you to visit the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo next year for the ninth annual Asian Lantern Festival:

We recommend viewing videos in full screen mode.

 

Related Blog Posts

We always like to include in our blog posts a list of related posts that may be of interest to our readers.

"Asian Culture" blog posts:

Two of the following "Zoo" blog posts are about the extra Cleveland Metroparks Trail Challenge trails at the zoo, and the third is about a special day at the zoo on Mother's Day 2018:

Since, in Cleveland, the zoo is part of the Cleveland Metroparks system, you might be interested in our blog posts about the parks:

 

If you found this blog post interesting, please share it with others. We write these posts as our way of reliving and sharing with others the fun experiences we have in the Cleveland/Akron area, and on our trips.