Although I had heard of lantern displays, I had never attended one so Thursday’s experience was a completely new one for me. Apparently, the event is also something new for the Columbus Zoo but they had more than a month’s experience with it before I got there. The Columbus Zoo Lantern Festival opened on August 1 and will run through September 29.

It opens at 7:00 while the sun is still shining and remains open until 10:00 long after the sun has set. I initially thought that was much more time than was reasonably required but realized that the lanterns essentially fill the entire zoo. And it’s a really big zoo.

I probably saw less than a third of the lanterns in full sunlight. 

Then I revisited some of those and took in the remainder as things got darker.

In between my light and dark walks, I took in one of the two shows that are offered. These photos are from the Martial Arts show. The other show, which I did not see, is Shadow Puppets.

Of course, darkness and lanterns really do go together.

Many lanterns represent living creatures and some are close enough to scale to be considered lifesize. That is decidedly not the case with this group.

When I searched for this event, I called it a Chinese Lantern Festival and many of the lanterns displayed in Columbus match some shown on a website with that name. The Columbus event, however, mostly, but not entirely, avoids the word Chinese. Perhaps that is because the zoo and the lanterns are organized to represent all the different areas of the globe. Of course, that means there is a section that does represent China.

Admission includes unlimited rides which was wasted on me although I did briefly consider taking a few laps on the historic carousel. And there are bunches of lanterns not pictured here. The Columbus Zoo Lantern Festival is open tonight and there are two more weeks of Thursday through Sunday operation.