LunarFest is a festival celebrating the Lunar New Year in Vancouver. Part of LunarFest is The Lantern City which features lantern-themed art installations.
In 2025 LunarFest runs from January 27th to February 22nd. Celebrating the Year of the Snake, its theme this year is “Fluidity in Diversity”. There are activities around downtown Vancouver as well as on Granville Island. The Lantern City art installations, meanwhile, can be seen at the same four locations throughout most of the festival.
With slightly different starting and finishing dates, special lantern art exhibits are at Granville Island, outside the Vancouver Art Gallery, at the Bentall Centre and at the Pendulum Gallery between January 27th and February 19th.
See our article about LunarFest or visit the LunarFest Vancouver website to learn more about the festival. To learn about The Lantern City, continue reading or visit thelanterncity.ca.
The Lantern City at Lunar New Year in Vancouver
In 2025, The Lantern City art installations are at four different venues in the City of Vancouver. You can see lanterns in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery until February 18th. There is another installation at Ocean Art Works Pavilion on Granville Island until February 17th. The third art installation is at the Pendulum Gallery until February 21st. New for 2025 is an exhibition at the Bentall Centre. It runs from January 29th to February 19th.
The lantern art displays outside the Vancouver Art Gallery are in šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ Square at 750 Hornby Street. Their theme in 2024 was “We are a Family.” 2025 details (for this as well as the other locations) are to be confirmed as of November, 2024.
On Granville Island, the art installation was at the Ocean Art Works Pavilion. The venue’s address is 1531 Johnston Street which is just a block or so from the Granville Island Public Market. The theme for the art there last year was “Forever Young.”
Unlike the other lantern art installations in 2024, the displays at the Pendulum Gallery were indoors. The venue was in the HSBC Building at 885 West Georgia Street, so just across the street from the Vancouver Art Gallery. The exhibition featured the works of a Taiwanese Canadian artist.
The displays at the Bentall Centre are new for this year and it’s currently unknown what they will look like (as of November, 2024).
Click The Lantern City for the event’s official website.
Other Activities at The Lantern City Venues
In addition to the art displays, there are free LunarFest celebrations at the same venues throughout the run of The Lantern City.
Activities from last year included an ongoing “Island Tribute” exhibition, as well as various artist talks. There was also a new arts market featuring the works of about a dozen local artists. LunarFest workshops were held on Granville Island too. They included bamboo weaving, origami and more. 2025 details should be similar.
In addition to the art display at šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ Square in the plaza outside the at the Vancouver Art Gallery, there were craft workshops on the weekend of the Lunar New Year last year.
LunarFest is related to The Lantern City and it has its own series of events. The full list of programming is TBA as of November, 2024.
Visit thelanterncity.ca or lunarfestvancouver.ca for the events’ official websites.
Other Information
To learn more about LunarFest and The Lantern City, visit the lunarfestvancouver.ca and thelanterncity.ca websites.
To learn about other events taking place at the same time of the year, see our article about the Lunar New Year in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver’s January and February calendars of events.
Other articles that might be of interest include the following:
- Free January Events in Vancouver
- LunarFest Vancouver
- Chinatown Spring Festival Parade
- Dine Out Vancouver Festival
LunarFest and The Lantern City are put on by the same people behind TaiwanFest on the Labour Day Weekend in September. It too is a very interesting cultural event.
