Purchase Tickets
In just over a month, as of this writing, Bellingrath Gardens & Home will host the inauguration of what we feel will become a new tradition for Mobile-area and Gulf Coast residents – The Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival. Partnering with Tianyu Arts and Culture, we are extremely excited and honored by the opportunity to bring this special event to Bellingrath!
If you haven’t heard of a Chinese lantern festival, don’t feel like you are alone. Although this tradition goes back 1,000 to 2,000 years in China, its presence in the U.S. is relatively new. Spokane, Washington was the first U.S. city to host a festival of this sort, with this milestone occurring only as recently as 2015. Since then, Chinese lantern festivals have been held in around 20 U.S. cities. With 2025, Mobile, Alabama joins this select list of celebrated locations for hosting this event. Our partner, Tianyu, is the acknowledged leader in developing and organizing these shows, and as such, Bellingrath is in good hands.
Some people think of “sky lanterns” when they think of festivals such as this, while others think of lanterns that float on water. The Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival is neither of these, instead being a showcase of larger-than-life wire-frame structures that are covered in brightly painted fabrics, these structures then lit from within and glowing at night. Moreover, the structures are huge. The dragon that will be on display, for instance, will be 200 feet long and around 12 feet tall!
Where in China do these lantern festivals originate? Well, that’s a more complicated question than you might think, but in today’s world, an epicenter of lantern festivals in China occurs in the city of Zigong, a city of around 2.5 million people located in southeastern Sichuan Province. (By Chinese standards, this is a small city, too.) Sichuan, or Szechuan as it was formerly spelled, Province is known for its spicy cuisine and for being the home of the panda preserve and conservation research efforts. Sichuan Province, by area, is about 15% larger than California.
Bellingrath Gardens & Home has led the way with evening special events. For almost 30 years, we have held Magic Christmas in Lights, but also as far back as 1932, Mr. Bellingrath was experimenting with special lighting to illuminate the gardens’ trees that were festooned with Spanish moss. In this regard, the Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival is a natural progression of us holding evening events. As with Magic Christmas, we feel that you, our supporters and guests, will be thrilled by the luminescence that these lanterns will bring, and we truly do believe that you will see Bellingrath in a new light. Tickets are on sale now at Bellingrath.org, and a special preview party has been set for April 12. Come one, and come all!