Top 10 Tips for Having a Blast @ Lantern Fest

by Natascha | May 3, 2016 | Outdoors, Top 10 Tips

LanternFest in Denver. It was a cool experience and a good family event and the people working the event seemed super nice. But like many things –  it’s so much more fun if you have a few tips beforehand. Here are my Top 10 Tips for having a blast @ Lantern Fest.

1. Bring chairs, and blankets to be comfortable. If your weather is even possibly going to cold/rainy, bring jackets and umbrellas. And don’t leave them in the car! You will be soooo far from your parked car, that you want to have them with you.
2. Bring your snacks, drinks, dinner food, including extra marshmallow supplies. (This is important – the “smores kit” you get doesn’t have nearly enough supplies in it.) You’ll get wooden smores sticks @ the event, but if you are like me and have your own really good smores sticks – go ahead and bring those, too. Just be sure to put a wine cork on the end of the sticks so that you don’t accidentally poke anyone during transport.  Bring water also – it’s hard/expensive to obtain there. Most of the locations let you bring in anything but glass or alcohol.
3. Bring a regular long-handled lighter or two. The little ones they give you are very hard to use and you’ll burn your hand trying to use them. You want some space between your hand and what you are trying to light. BTW, that little square piece of cardboard really is the only thing you light; the fuel is embedded in the cardboard. (I didn’t understand this at first, and I went back to ask for the fuel for my lantern!)
4. Put all of the above items into a wagon or cart to make it easy to carry – but make sure you can lift your cart up the stairs – you may not be able to pull it all the way.
5. If you have young children, go about two hours before sundown. Doors open at 3pm, the lanterns fly around 8 pm. If you go at 6pm, you’ll still see lots of fun action (like costumed characters walking around, face painting, etc), and your kids won’t be bored by the time the lanterns fly. The downside is that you should expect long lines to get in (both into parking and into the event) at that time.
6. Since these are held on the outskirts of town, in areas with low fire danger, they may be dusty. Which means you may have lots of dust/dirt blowing into your face while waiting for the wind to die down. If it’s rainy or windy, expect delays regarding when you get to release your lanterns. (In Denver, I think they wanted us all to release at the same time and perhaps they wanted to wait until the wind died down. But the loudspeaker system didn’t work, so no one knew when we were supposed to do. About 1 hour after it got dark, everyone started releasing them.)
7. Leave the electronic devices (ipads, etc) @ home. Of course bring your camera to take photos, but this is about the experience! You’ll meet lots of fun people and can make some new friends.
8. The firepits are lit around sundown, and there are only a few of them. The early birds set their chairs up around those few firepits. So unless you were there early, you’ll need to just ask to share someone else’s firepit. Everyone is super nice about this, so just cozy on up!
9. Bring a flashlight – that will make a big difference as you walk around after dark.
10. Be sure to take a selfie with your family, facing away from the lanterns so that they create a lovely background behind you.
11. Bonus Tip: Take a photo of your lantern before it gets dark. You will be provided a sharpie to write hopes, dreams, drawings, etc on the lantern and it will be fun to have a photo of what your lantern looked like before it flew.

Top 10 Tips for Attending Lantern Fest