A crew of 15 has to install a 164-foot lantern display on Symphony Lake with a crane before the NC Chinese Lantern Festival opens at Koka Booth Amphitheatre on November 21. On a Saturday in January, residents will walk a different set of lanterns through Downtown Cary Park. They built those themselves in Town workshops at Bond Park Community Center and the Cary Arts Center, where most lanterns cost $15 to make.
Cary runs both of these in the same season, back to back. The festival closes January 10, 2027. The 6th annual Under the Silver Moon Lantern Parade steps off on January 16 at 6 p.m. Six days after the imported lanterns go dark, the homemade ones come out. If you want to carry one, the timing matters more than you'd expect, because the workshops behind the parade started weeks before the festival opened.
Forty-five tractor-trailers to Regency Parkway
The festival is a big production, and the numbers show how big. Koka Booth says more than 50 Chinese artisans and performers arrived in North Carolina in late October to hand-assemble the lanterns and prepare the cultural performances. Setup takes 15 days. The materials come into the N.C. Ports in Wilmington and take 45 tractor-trailers to deliver. This year's show has more than 40 lantern groupings. Each lantern is silk stretched over a steel frame and lit with up to hundreds of LEDs. Most of the lanterns are made in Zigong, in Sichuan province, a city the venue calls China's lantern capital for centuries.
This is the festival's eleventh year. Tianyu Arts & Culture, Inc. produces it in cooperation with the Town of Cary. Koka Booth describes this year's groupings under four themes: Chinese culture, mythical creatures, mysterious nature, and interactive displays.
Most traditional Chinese lantern festivals fall on the 15th day of the first lunar month, the last day of the Lunar New Year, a custom that goes back about 2,000 years. Cary's version runs through the Western holidays and closes before Lunar New Year arrives. That leaves mid-January open, and the Town fills it with a lantern event of its own.
Picking your night at Koka Booth
The festival is a walkthrough at 8003 Regency Parkway. Koka Booth says most guests need 45 to 75 minutes to see every display, with seating along the route. Regular hours are 6 to 10 p.m. every night. Which night you go, and which ticket you buy, changes the visit more than people tend to plan for:
- Twilight Session, 4:30 p.m. entry. Koka Booth pitches this one as "Golden Hour" with smaller crowds and suggests arriving by 5:30. Discounts don't apply to Twilight tickets.
- Evening Session, 6 to 9 p.m. You pick the date. On Sunday through Thursday nights there are discounts for military, seniors 55 and older, and college students with valid ID. Those discounts don't apply on Fridays, Saturdays, or holidays. Prices go up if you buy on the day you attend.
- Any Night tickets. Good for any night of the season, and the venue suggests them as gifts.
- Sensory-Friendly Night, December 1. Music is quieter, attendance is reduced, there are no strobe or flashing lights, and a designated Quiet Area is available.
- Holiday hours. On Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Eve, gates are open 6 to 9 p.m., stage performances are at 6:30 and 7:30 only, and there's no Twilight Session. The festival is closed on Christmas Day. New Year's Eve and New Year's Day have regular hours.
A few logistics are worth knowing before you leave the house. Tickets are mobile only and arrive four days before your date. Koka Booth is a cashless venue. There are about 1,500 free general parking spaces. A limited number of preferred parking passes cost $10 in advance or $15 on the night. Bags have to be 6 by 8 inches or smaller, or clear and no larger than 12 by 12 by 9 inches. Parenting, medical, and camera bags are exceptions. Backpacks and lawn chairs aren't allowed. You can bring two factory-sealed bottles of water each, and you'll want them, because the water fountains and fill stations are closed for the winter. Pets aren't allowed. Trained service animals are.
The food is new this season. Lantern Street Cafe is serving Asian night-market dishes, including Loaded Fries with queso, sweet chili, scallions, and furikake, Char Siu Pork Rice Bowls, Silk Road Miso Ramen, a Dragon Fire Chicken Sandwich on a sweet donut bun, Imperial Crab Rangoon, Chinese Donuts with cinnamon sugar, and Spiked Hot Chocolate. Food trucks come on Fridays and Saturdays.
The other calendar started in October
The parade runs on a slower schedule. Cary's GLOW workshop series started October 3 and goes through January 9. Visual teaching artist Gowri Savoor leads it, building lantern structures from sustainable materials that people then carry on January 16. Classes meet at Bond Park Community Center or the Cary Arts Center. You register through the Town's RecTrac system, and you need an account first.
By mid-November, the Vellum Tower, Star, Floral, and Rattan Flower sessions are behind us; the last Rattan Flower sessions met Sunday, November 8. Here's what's left on the Town's list:
| Workshop | Date | Ages | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Large Scale Lantern, 3 days | Sat Nov 14 and Sun Nov 15, 10 a.m.–4 p.m., plus papering day Sat Dec 5, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. | See RecTrac | $75 per lantern |
| Green House Lantern | Sun Dec 13, 10 a.m.–3 p.m. | 10 and up | $15 per lantern |
| Pyramid Lantern | Sat Jan 9, 10 a.m.–3 p.m. | 10 and up | $15 per lantern |
Children under 12 need a guardian with them at every session. Look at the timing of the Large Scale Lantern. It starts a week before the festival opens, and its papering day lands on December 5, the same date as the Town's Tree Lighting Celebration at Downtown Cary Park. If you want to carry a big lantern in January, you sign up now, before most people have bought their festival tickets.
The Town's November newsletter also lists three workshops that are new this year: floral lantern forms and a rattan flower workshop with Gowri Savoor, a paper-and-light papermaking workshop with Ann Marie Kennedy, and an LED matrix workshop with Wes Swain. The LED class fits a parade rule. Fire and candle-lit lanterns aren't allowed, so every lantern on Frantz Square Lawn has to light up some other way. If none of the dates work for you, the Town's parade page has a video that shows how to make a lantern at home.
Six days after the festival goes dark
The parade is free and open to everyone. On Saturday, January 16, 2027, people gather with their lanterns on the Frantz Square Lawn at 6 p.m., and the parade moves through Downtown Cary Park. Entertainment comes from the Bulltown Strutters, One Tribe Rhythms, Caroleena's Circle of Joy, Asheville Puppet Creatures, Colorful Waves, and The Awesomettes, and food trucks will be there. Leave pets at home.
The tradition is fairly new. A River of Light says Cary held its first Under the Silver Moon community lantern parade in winter 2021, with workshops leading up to it, as a way to bring Wake County communities together through the arts. In a January 2024 interview with Downtown Cary, Savoor described the workshop-to-parade model as a way to build community and local traditions. January 2027 will be the sixth parade.
The two events differ in what you bring home. At Koka Booth, you walk through work made in Zigong and assembled by visiting artisans, and you leave with photos. At the parade, the lanterns were made by your neighbors, and you take yours home afterward.
One winter, both lanterns
The two events overlap with the rest of Cary's holiday calendar in ways that make it easy to plan around them:
- November 14–15: The Large Scale Lantern workshop begins, a week before the festival opens on November 21.
- December 5: The papering day for large lanterns, the Tree Lighting at 6 p.m. in Downtown Cary Park, Victorian Christmas at the Page-Walker Arts & History Center, and the first day of the 15th annual Gifting Tree Project along S. Academy St. all fall on the same day.
- December 13: The Green House Lantern workshop meets the day after the 47th annual Cary Jaycees Christmas Parade, which runs from 2 to 4 p.m. on December 12.
- January 9 and 10: The last workshop, Pyramid Lantern, is on Saturday. On Sunday the Koka Booth festival has its final night.
- January 16: Gather on Frantz Square Lawn at 6 p.m. with your lantern.
If you're going to Koka Booth on a Sunday-through-Thursday night in December, it's easy to sign up for the Green House session for the following weekend while you're at it. That way, by mid-January you'll have seen the 164-foot display on Symphony Lake and have a lantern of your own ready to carry.
Here at Triangle Home Sales, we love the Cary traditions that ask residents to make something together, and Under the Silver Moon is one of the best. If you're mapping out your winter in Cary, or comparing which parts of town put you close to Koka Booth or Downtown Cary Park, Meagan is happy to talk it through over coffee. Let's Connect.
