After 16 years, Tainan City will host the Taiwan Lantern Festival once again. The city government held the Main Visual Debut Press Conference on September 26, during which Mayor Huang Wei-che announced the start of the festival.
Mayor Huang Wei-che remarked that the city invited well-known paper cutting artist Frank Yang, a Tainan native, to design the logo and standard Chinese character style for the main visual of the 2024 Taiwan Lantern Festival and Professor Huang Gui-ying, an assistant professor at the Department of Visual Arts and Design of National University of Tainan, will oversee the coordination of poster design and related visual applications. The final presentation aims to show the excitement of the ancient capital as well as its development in the past 400 years. Huang added that the main visual of the Taiwan Lantern Festival includes a variety of local cultural and historical elements from Tainan and he hopes to share the image of Tainan with more friends at home and abroad. Lastly, the Mayor invited all to take part in the wonderful activities during the Festival and savor the beauty of this ancient city.
The logo design for the festival was inspired by the 2024 Taiwan Lantern Festival’s theme, Glorious Tainan, explained artist Frank Yang. The logo combines a flying auspicious dragon (for the Year of the Dragon) with an image of Tainan’s old city gate to form the Chinese character 南 (“south”). The design captures the excitement and delight felt during this significant occasion as well as the city’s rich history and historic capital grandeur. The felicitous dragon leaps up high out of the light in Tainan, announcing the opening of the festival to the world.
The 2024 Taiwan Lantern Festival has two main exhibition areas: the Anping Lantern Area and the HSR Lantern Area. The Anping Lantern Area, which includes Linmoniang Park, the former 1661 Taiwan Warship Museum, the Anping Canal, and the Anping Recreational Wharf, will be open earlier - from February 3 to March 10, 2024. The HSR Lantern Area covers the ICC Tainan and its surrounding areas right next to the Tainan HSR Station as well as the Shalun Green Energy Technology Demonstration Site. This area will be opened on the day of the Lantern Festival and welcome guests between February 24 and March 10, 2024. The Festival will also feature international performing arts groups, lantern art displays, arts and cultural performances, and large lanterns that incorporate various technologies.