How Zoos & Botanical Gardens Boost Revenue with Lantern Festivals

For zoos, botanical gardens, and parks across North America, the fall and winter months tell a familiar story: shorter days, cooler temperatures, and a steep drop in visitor traffic. The families and tourists who filled pathways and exhibit halls just weeks earlier have retreated indoors, and with them goes a significant share of annual revenue. For venue directors and programming managers, it’s a challenge that comes around every year — and one that’s increasingly hard to ignore.

But a growing number of outdoor venues are rewriting that story. By hosting a zoo lantern festival or botanical garden light festival, they’re not just surviving the off-season — they’re turning it into one of their most anticipated and profitable times of year. We’ve seen it firsthand. Here’s what’s driving that shift, and what venue leaders should know.

The Off-Season Challenge Outdoor Venues Face

Most zoos, gardens, and parks are designed for daylight and warm weather. Their programming calendars reflect that. When fall arrives and temperatures dip, attendance numbers follow — and the revenue gap can be substantial. Operating costs don’t disappear with the visitors, which means the off-season squeeze affects everything from staffing to capital reinvestment.

Traditional solutions — holiday lighting displays, seasonal décor, discounted admission — offer modest relief, but rarely generate the kind of sustained attendance and earned media attention that meaningfully move the needle. What today’s audiences are looking for is an experience: something worth planning around, worth driving to, worth sharing on social media. That’s exactly what a well-produced lantern festival delivers.

“The lantern festival is one of our largest fundraising events. It helps to support operations of the zoo, the care of the animals, the conservation work that we do. And by doing the event, it also brings awareness about the zoo and the community. And so it allows people of all ages to come enjoy the activities that are throughout the festival.”

– Stephanie Williams, Zoo Director, Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens

Why Lantern Festivals Are a Natural Fit for Zoos and Botanical Gardens

Not every seasonal event translates well to every venue type. Lantern festivals are different — and in our decade-plus of working with zoos, botanical gardens, and parks across North America, we’ve found they’re a remarkably natural match for the kinds of spaces these venues already offer.

The infrastructure is already there. Winding pathways, expansive grounds, mature trees, open plazas — the very features that define a great zoo or garden experience during the day become the canvas for an immersive after-dark installation. We don’t need to build a venue from scratch; the space already tells a story, and our lanterns illuminate it beautifully.

The audience overlap is significant. Families with young children are already the core demographic for most zoos and botanical gardens. Lantern festivals speak directly to that audience — offering wonder, color, and a sense of cultural discovery that resonates across age groups. Rather than marketing to a new audience, venue partners are deepening their connection with the one they already have.

The mission alignment is genuine. Our festivals are rooted in themes of wildlife, conservation, and natural beauty — values that zoos and botanical gardens actively champion. When our installations feature endangered species rendered in silk and light, or ocean ecosystems glowing along a garden path, the festival becomes more than entertainment. It becomes an extension of the venue’s educational purpose — and that’s something we care deeply about.

The Power of the After-Dark Experience

One of the most valuable aspects of a lantern festival is something easy to overlook: it happens at night. That means it doesn’t compete with a venue’s standard daytime operations. It opens an entirely new revenue window — ticket sales, food and beverage, merchandise — during hours when the venue would otherwise be closed and earning nothing.

Nighttime experiences have become one of the fastest-growing segments of the outdoor attractions market. Visitors are actively seeking immersive, atmospheric events that feel distinct from ordinary outings — moments worth dressing up for, worth lingering over, worth capturing and sharing. A beautifully produced immersive light festival installation delivers all of that. It transforms a familiar place into something that feels entirely new.

“It’s a completely different experience from the daytime… at night, it’s just such a magical experience.”

– Brooke Wardrop, Vice President of Marketing & Communications, Franklin Park Zoo – Boston Lights: A Lantern Experience

Real-World Results: What Venues Are Seeing

The appeal of lantern festivals isn’t theoretical. Venues we’ve worked with — and others across the country — have hosted these events and seen real, measurable results.

The North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival, held each fall and winter at Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, has become one of the most compelling proof points in the industry. Now in its 10th year, the event sold more than 257,000 tickets in its most recent run, generating $10.62 million in direct economic impact for the surrounding region — up from $8.09 million the previous year. The festival logged 23 sold-out nights and drew visitors from all 50 U.S. states and six foreign countries.

Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo has built a recurring model with its Glow Wild event, returning season after season with hand-crafted lantern displays celebrating the zoo’s wildlife and conservation mission. The event has become a membership benefit — a smart strategy for deepening relationships with the zoo’s most dedicated supporters while introducing the festival to new audiences.

At Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens, a three-quarter-mile lantern pathway transforms the grounds into an evening destination for regional families. The festival has also introduced designated Sensory Nights for visitors with disabilities or sensory sensitivities — a meaningful differentiator that speaks to the venue’s commitment to its community.

These aren’t isolated experiments. They’re repeatable, scalable models — and it’s a model we know how to build.

“We exceeded our expectations beyond belief… we were able to sell 89,000 tickets to the Asian Lantern Festival and we are so proud we’ve been able to sell out every single night.”

– Stephanie Williams, Zoo Director, Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens

Multiple Revenue Streams, One Event

One of the most compelling arguments for hosting a seasonal event for zoos or gardens is the breadth of revenue opportunities a lantern festival creates. Ticket sales are just the beginning.

Beyond the Gate: How Venues Earn More Per Visitor

A well-designed festival creates natural moments to pause, explore, and spend. When we plan an event with our venue partners, we think carefully about how the visitor journey can generate meaningful revenue at every turn — not just at the gate:

• Food and beverage: Festival atmosphere naturally encourages dining. Warm food and seasonal drinks on a cool evening are reliably popular — and profitable. Our venue partners can work with their existing concessionaires or tap into our network of approved traveling food vendors.
• Marketplace Revenue: Many venue partners generate additional income by keeping their gift shops or souvenir stores open during festival hours. Extended evening retail gives guests another opportunity to browse and purchase merchandise as part of the overall experience.
• Sponsorships and brand partnerships: A high-attendance, visually stunning event attracts sponsors seeking memorable brand association. Presenting sponsorships, themed pavilion naming rights, and branded experiences offer genuine value to corporate partners — and meaningful revenue for the venue.
• Premium experiences: Photo opportunities, VIP access, early-entry windows, and exclusive viewing areas allow venues to offer tiered pricing — and generate premium per-ticket revenue.
• Membership and loyalty integration: Offering member discounts or exclusive member preview nights can drive membership upgrades and renewals, turning the festival into a loyalty tool as much as a revenue event.

Non-ticket spending, when thoughtfully designed into the experience, often has a greater long-term revenue impact than gate revenue alone. We’ve seen it again and again: when visitors feel invited to linger, they do — and they spend.

What to Look for in a Lantern Festival Production Partner

Hosting a successful lantern festival is not simply a matter of acquiring lanterns and opening the gates. The quality of the production — the craftsmanship of the displays, the integrity of the theming, the smoothness of the operations — shapes every aspect of the guest experience and the event’s long-term success.

As you evaluate potential partners, here’s what we’d encourage you to look for:

• Turnkey production capability — from design and manufacturing through installation, maintenance, and operations, all managed by a single experienced team. The fewer handoffs, the smoother the event.
• Customization for your venue — the ability to develop themes that reflect your mission, your landscape, and your audience. No two venues are alike, and your festival shouldn’t feel like it belongs somewhere else.
• Proven venue partnerships — a track record of successful collaborations with zoos, botanical gardens, parks, and similar institutions. Ask for examples. Ask for references.
• End-to-end event support — logistics, permitting, staffing, ticketing, marketing assistance, and post-event evaluation. A great production partner is invested in your success, not just your contract.

At Tianyu Arts & Culture, we’ve spent over a decade building exactly this kind of partnership. As the largest Chinese lantern festival producer in North America, we’ve worked with zoos, botanical gardens, natural science museums, aquariums, and public parks to create festivals that draw hundreds of thousands of visitors and leave lasting impressions. Explore what we offer and see how we bring these experiences to life.