530,000 m² of Lights, 40+ Intangible Cultural Heritage Installations: How Can Light and Shadow Bring Traditional Culture to Life Today?
As the winter cultural tourism market continues to heat up, lighting—an essential driver of the night-time economy—is evolving from “basic illumination” into a “cultural light-and-shadow medium.” The Shenzhen Splendid China 2025–2026 New Year Lantern Festival will open on December 5 and run through March 8, 2026.
Centered on the concept of “Revitalizing Intangible Cultural Heritage”, the festival features an expansive 530,000 m² sea of lights and over 40 lantern installations inspired by intangible cultural heritage, creating a benchmark light-and-shadow spectacle in the Greater Bay Area. Its lighting design and technological applications offer a representative case study for innovative practices in the lighting industry within cultural tourism scenarios.
I. Scale and Lighting Positioning: Creating a Night Tourism Landmark Through “Grand Scenes + High Precision”
From an industry perspective, the key breakthrough of this lantern festival lies in deeply integrating “scale advantages” with “cultural precision” through light-and-shadow technologies, delivering a differentiated night-tour experience.
Spatial lighting coverage: Across the 530,000 m² park, a strategy of “overall linkage with zoned focal highlights” is adopted, combining general lighting with accent lighting for key lantern installations. This approach ensures visitor safety while clearly defining visual hierarchy. Large-scale installations such as “Dragon and Phoenix in Harmony” and “Intangible Heritage of the Greater Bay Area” present a majestic impact from afar and refined details up close.
Lantern installation scale and technical standards: More than 40 intangible cultural heritage lantern installations adopt a “traditional craftsmanship + modern light source” solution. Giant works such as “Phoenix Dancing Across the Nine Heavens” create a powerful visual impact. The design balances dynamic effects—such as flowing phoenix wings—while addressing Shenzhen’s rainy winter climate to ensure stable, long-term display.
Lighting adaptation for long-term operation: Running from December 5 to March 8 (approximately three months), the festival places high demands on lighting systems for low energy consumption and high reliability. According to industry practice, modern light sources offer significantly higher energy efficiency than traditional incandescent lamps, require extended fault-free operation, and are often paired with intelligent operation and maintenance systems to monitor lantern status and reduce overall operating costs.
II. Integration of Technology and Intangible Cultural Heritage: How Lighting Translates Traditional Aesthetics
The core value of this lantern festival lies in using lighting technology to transform intangible cultural heritage elements—such as paper cutting, cloisonné, and blue-and-white porcelain—from “static exhibits” into “dynamic light and shadow,” achieving a contemporary expression of traditional aesthetics.
The Palace Museum IP Lantern Installations: A Heritage Reinterpretation of Imperial Lighting
The newly introduced Palace Museum IP installation “China in Light” is a typical example of how lighting recreates traditional craftsmanship.
Painted Enamel and Glass Inlaid Auspicious Gourd Pendant Lamp: The lighting design recreates the metallic sheen and warm golden texture of enamel glazes. Floral patterns are etched onto the glass shade, while side lighting creates a pronounced three-dimensional relief effect, reproducing the refined elegance of traditional imperial lanterns.
Square Lanterns and Fu-Qing (Blessing Chime) Lanterns: The lighting emphasizes light-and-shadow storytelling. The square lanterns use layered illumination to highlight decorative details and create a soft, hazy ambiance; the Fu-Qing lanterns employ diffused light from the base to simulate the effect of the chime itself glowing, echoing the symbolic meaning of happiness and auspiciousness.
Intangible Cultural Heritage–Themed Lantern Installations: Light-and-shadow interpretation of material textures
“Blue-and-White Elegance” Light Installation: A cool white light base combined with blue filters creates gradient lighting that simulates the tonal variations of blue-and-white porcelain. The wave-like arrangement of the installation, with alternating light and shadow, produces a dynamic effect resembling a “surging sea of porcelain.”
“Paper-Cut Light Rhyme” and “Splendor of the Pear Garden” Light Installations: The lighting design ensures that paper-cut patterns appear crisp and layered at night. “Splendor of the Pear Garden” incorporates color-changing functions, using traditional opera color palettes to reinforce the theme.
Greater Bay Area Culture Light Installations: A convergence of landmark imagery and intangible cultural heritage expressed through light and shadow.
“Intangible Cultural Heritage Greater Bay Area” Lantern Group: This installation combines Greater Bay Area landmarks with intangible cultural heritage elements such as the Awakening Lion and Bu Ma Dance. The lighting employs a “contour lighting + dynamic interaction” approach: landmarks are outlined with high-brightness illumination to ensure visibility from a distance; the Awakening Lion features dynamic lighting to simulate its dancing posture, coordinated with the Bu Ma Dance lanterns to present a visual narrative of “heritage coexisting with modern urban life.”
Ⅲ. IP-based Lighting Scenes: Innovative Logic for Immersive Night Tours
The lighting industry is transitioning from “single-purpose illumination” to “scene construction.” This festival explores the implementation of immersive lighting through two major IP-themed street zones.
“Splendid Market · Dream of Glory” Lantern Group: Light and shadow recreation of Song Dynasty urban life
The overall lighting adopts a low-brightness, warm tone to replicate the illumination quality of Song Dynasty oil lamps and lanterns. Along the streets, antique-style palace lanterns are installed at intervals, with built-in flickering light effects to recreate the lively atmosphere of the “Bianjing Night Market.”
In the “Half-Masked Teahouse” area, lighting design creates an immersive experience of “savoring tea and listening to music,” emphasizing interactive scenes between tea tables and NPCs. The “Hongqiao Yue Lao” scene uses light elements to reinforce the concept of “matchmaking,” enhanced with a starry sky light curtain and red string lights for a richer experience.
“Lychees of Chang’an”: Lighting guides the movement through Tang Dynasty pathways
Centered on the “Lychee Transport Line,” lighting guides visitors along the route, with Tang Dynasty-style street lamps placed along the way.
At the “Lychee Delivery Point,” high-intensity spotlights focus on the core scene, enhancing the climax of the narrative. Through feature lighting and NPC interactions, the design elevates the immersive nighttime park experience.
Ⅳ. Value for the Lighting Industry: A Sustainable Path to Empowering the Night Economy
The lighting practices at Shenzhen Splendid China’s New Year Lantern Festival provide three key insights for the industry:
Cultural Empowerment as the Core of Lighting Innovation: By integrating intangible cultural heritage techniques with modern lighting technology—such as the texture restoration in enamel lamps and layered effects in paper-cut lamps—lighting evolves from a “functional tool” to a “cultural medium,” enriching the cultural depth of night-tour products. At this lantern festival, heritage elements were brought to life through light and shadow, attracting visitors willing to “pay for culture.” The discounted night tickets starting at RMB 39.9 further expanded the consumer base, demonstrating the market potential of culturally-driven lighting.
IP-Based Scenes Enhance Lighting Value: By leveraging IP to create bespoke lighting environments, a deep integration of “light, narrative, and interaction” is achieved, breaking the traditional lantern festival limitation of “just viewing lights.” This approach can significantly extend visitors’ nighttime stay, opening a new track for the lighting industry in “customized scene” solutions.
Long-Term Operation Drives Lighting Technology Upgrade: Spanning approximately three months, the festival imposes clear requirements on low energy consumption, high stability, and easy maintenance of lighting systems. The lighting solutions implemented provide a practical reference for large-scale, long-duration night tourism projects and also encourage lighting companies to advance R&D toward “low energy consumption + high experience” solutions.
Conclusion
From the expansive 530,000㎡ illuminated layout, to the meticulous recreation of Palace-style lamps, and the immersive design of IP-themed scenes, the Shenzhen Splendid China New Year Festival leverages lighting as its core medium to achieve the dual goals of “revitalizing intangible cultural heritage” and “empowering the night-time economy.”
For the lighting industry, this is not only a successful project case but also signifies that the new lighting paradigm of “culture + technology + scenario” has become a key driver of the night tourism economy. Looking ahead, with further advancements in modern lighting, intelligent control, and interactive light-and-shadow technologies, lighting will serve as a more efficient bridge connecting cultural heritage with commercial value.
