Magical Winter Lights is a spectacular, larger-than-life 45-day winter wonderland of lights and live entertainment. This 52-day holiday season celebration runs between November 19, 2021, to January 2, 2022, east of Houston in Baytown, Texas, and presents a fresh multicultural view on traditional holiday light shows.
Magical Winter Lights takes up over 20 acres and guests can tour more than 100 individual lantern sets in eight unique themed sections of the festival. Each section features Texas-sized lantern masterpieces using Chinese lantern-making techniques, some of which are 60-feet high. The festival is Houston’s largest holiday celebration and the nation’s largest lantern festival of its kind.This year’s festival has new attractions like the Magical Winter Lights Express train and more dino rides than before.
Themed areas of the festival include:
- The Kingdom: The gateway entrance to a wonderland with vivid colors giving way to the night’s dreamscapes
- The Village: Inspired by the beautiful holiday decorated town squares found throughout Europe in many small towns.
- The Dino: Showcases life-size prehistoric dinosaurs and their history.
- Houston: A tribute to America’s fourth largest and most ethnically diverse cities in America and the home of Magical Winter Lights
- The Space: A journey through space to see planets and curious creatures beyond our atmosphere.
- The Ice: A whimsical ice work where beautiful snow trees and cute penguins add to the festival atmosphere.
- The Sea: Filled with vibrant and colorful sea life you can experience the incredible little mermaid and her grotto and see what it’s like to be eaten by a shark.
- Explore Asia: Encompasses all Asian cultures in an awe-inspiring way visiting the sites of an ancient village.
There are other funs things to do as well while you stroll the magnificent light holiday festival. The festival’s family friendly experiences include Santa and Mrs. Claus meet and greet, Ice Sisters meet and greet, cultural performances, carnival rides, food and games, music, dinosaur exhibit and dino rides to name a few.
Why not visit with the ice Sisters as you visit The Ice themed section? Of course, there’s a visit from Santa and the opportunity to have your photo taken with him by the Magical Winter Lights Christmas Tree.
Then there’s the carnival with an 87-foot-tall gondola Ferris wheel that has fun rides for both small kids and kids-at-heart. There’s also plenty of carnival-style food for you to eat as you enjoy this one-of-a-kind festival.
The Magic Winter Lights festival made its debut in 2015.
The festival is the vision of Yusi An who moved from China to Texas for college. While living in Texas she visited many Christmas light shows that reminded her of lantern festivals she went to as a child in China. After visiting China in 2014, she realized that that a city like Houston would be a be a great place to introduce a lantern festival. Its diversity would make it naturally receptive to her unique approach to a traditional light show. Her passion turned into the creation of Magical Winter Lights in 2015.
Magical Winter Lights is a capital and labor intensive undertaking. Her small team, “People Generation,” handles everything from event production, logistics and promotion for the event. It works with a sister company in China to make the festival happen. These massive lantern towering constructions are partially constructed in China and then shipped to Houston. There a team of Chinese lantern artists completes them. Approximately 100 Chinese lantern artists are involved in production, assembly and putting the finishing touches on these huge lantern displays. New designs are added each year.
Last year the festival had to be cancelled because of Covid. It’s back bigger and better than ever for 2021. The Magical Lantern Festival relocated to a 20-acre sits at the Houston Race Way in Baytown, Texas. The new site gives the festival room to grow and attract new visitors to the festival.
If you are lucky enough to live in Houston or visiting Houston for the holidays, check out this family-oriented holiday festival. You can even purchase discounted tickets through Houston area Costco’s.
TSE Entertainment is proud to provide live entertainment for the festival. Examples of artists and bands booked for the festival include Christina and JP Duo, Gritty Sunset and Wild Fire.
TSE looks forward to working with the Magic Winter Lights Festival and Yusi An on future festival booking and production issues.
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