Tickets are officially on sale for the 11th annual North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival, which will light up Koka Booth Amphitheatre in Cary from November 21, 2026 through January 10, 2027. Chinese artisans are already at work creating all-new lantern displays for the season, each made up of hundreds of individual pieces and illuminated by thousands of LED lights. The festival will be closed on Christmas Day but otherwise runs nightly from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
As reported by ABC11, festival ticket options this year include Any Night tickets, which let guests pick whichever evening works for them, along with date-specific Twilight Session and Evening Session tickets. Twilight Sessions offer entry during the golden hour, starting 90 minutes before the regular opening at 4:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, though they carry no discounts and are not available on Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve. Evening Session tickets, meanwhile, are valid for a specific night's full 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. run. Children ages 2 and younger get in free, and organizers are urging guests to buy early since ticket prices will increase once the season opens on November 21.
A Decade of Sold-Out Nights and Millions in Revenue
The urgency to book ahead isn't just marketing spin. The festival's 10th anniversary season, which just wrapped earlier this year, generated $11,661,189 in direct economic impact for Wake County and more than $528,000 in direct local tax revenue, according to figures released by the Town of Cary. That season drew 249,360 total visitors and logged 22 sold-out nights, with nearly two-thirds of attendees traveling from outside Wake County and representing all 50 states and eight countries.
Those numbers build on a clear multi-year trend. The 2024–2025 season previously brought in $10.62 million in direct economic impact and $470,440 in local tax revenue across 257,000 ticket sales, up from $8.09 million the season before, according to figures shared by Koka Booth Amphitheatre. Independent visitor-tracking firm Placer.ai found the amphitheatre ranked in the top 10 percent of comparable entertainment venues nationwide during festival months for four consecutive seasons, and ranked No. 1 in North Carolina for two straight years.
Town Locks In Festival Through 2034
That track record helped convince the Town of Cary to extend its agreement for the festival through the 2033–2034 season, an eight-year commitment finalized in March. Town officials made the move following the record-breaking attendance and revenue from the 10th anniversary run, ensuring the winter tradition keeps returning to the 14-acre Koka Booth site for the better part of another decade.
The festival's roots trace back to 2015, when Town of Cary officials launched it as a way to generate revenue during the amphitheatre's dormant winter off-season, as INDY Week has reported. The event is produced in partnership with Chicago-based Tianyu Arts & Culture, Inc., a subsidiary of a Zigong, China-based company — Zigong is considered the global capital of lantern-making. Each fall, Tianyu dispatches more than 50 artisans, electricians, and performers to Cary, where they spend weeks working 12-to-14-hour days assembling power lines, crane structures, and silk sculptures ahead of opening night, per INDY Week's reporting.
Tianyu produces dozens of similar touring light festivals annually at parks, zoos, and cultural venues across the country, including in Dallas, Houston, and Los Angeles, but has confirmed that Cary's event draws the highest total attendance of any of them nationwide. Hoodline reported this week that Tianyu sent 498 artisans from Zigong to 44 light festivals nationwide in 2025, underscoring just how large the company's U.S. footprint has become — with Cary sitting at the top of that list.
Charity Add-Ons and a Sensory-Friendly Night
Beyond the economic figures, the festival has folded in some community-minded touches. During the 10th anniversary season, online ticket buyers contributed $7,014.61 to the Kay Yow Cancer Fund and $7,659.49 to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina through checkout donations. The event also features nightly cultural arts performances on the main stage as part of the nightly display.
Organizers have also built in a designated Sensory-Friendly Night, featuring lower audio volume, reduced venue capacity, no strobe lights, and quiet decompression spaces for visitors on the autism spectrum or with sensory sensitivities. For the 2026–2027 season, that sensory-friendly evening is scheduled for December 1, 2026.
With ticket prices set to rise once the season opens and a history of selling out more than 20 nights per run, organizers are encouraging guests to lock in Any Night, Twilight Session, or Evening Session tickets sooner rather than later for this year's display, which glows nightly at Koka Booth Amphitheatre from November 21 through January 10, aside from its Christmas Day closure.
