All Fired Up

Everybody loves a parade. Imagine one under the magic of a starlit summer night. Add to it some blazing flames and beating drums and you’ve got a childhood memory that lasts. So get fired up this summer because Vancouver boasts not one, but two lantern festivals—the Illuminares and the Wild Lights Lantern Festival.
The Illuminares Lantern Festival (known to locals as the Trout Lake Lantern Festival) is one of the best summer festivals for family fun in Vancouver. Next Saturday, over 25,000 people of all ages will gather at dusk with their handmade lanterns, wild costumes and painted faces. Four musical ensembles on each corner of the lake will enchant festival goers as they stroll in a lit procession around Trout Lake. Expect the real fun to start when the sun goes down. Fire jugglers, musicians and dancers will perform to the beat of rhythmic drums. We love the local, grassroots spirit behind the Illuminares Lantern Festival. The mandate of the event organizer, Public Dreams Society, is to help communities to create their own neighbourhood-based arts and cultural celebrations. With this event in its twentieth year, a community tradition has definitely taken hold.