Lantern festival thought it was headed to Delta, but it's been canceled instead

A lantern festival that was slated to come to Delta the first weekend in November will not be permitted to hold its event because of safety concerns.

The Lights Fest, a lantern festival with music and food that is held at locations around the country and often draws a crowd of thousands, had an event scheduled for mid-October in Philadelphia. When a Philadelphia fire official said weather at the event might cause traffic problems if wind blew lanterns over I-95, the event had to be moved.

Organizers advertised on the event website that they were relocating to Delta, according to Dennis Emmel, president of the Delta-Cardiff Volunteer Fire Company. 

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But The Lights Fest will not be held in Delta on Nov. 4 because of the possibility of a fire, Emmel said. At the festival, paper bags with lit candles are released into the sky.

Emmel said organizers didn't have a contract to hold the event in Delta.

"They figured they could just immediately transfer" to Delta, Emmel said. "At this point, it will not be held."

Event organizers were not available for an interview on Wednesday.

Emmel said there's been a lot of discussion about the festival, and so a community meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday at the fire company to get information to the community about what happened and what might be planned for the future.

A lantern fest organized by the same company was held in Delta in August, Emmel said. Many more people came than locals expected.

"They kept telling 8,000 people" were coming to the festival, Emmel said. "We said, ain't no way there's gonna be 8,000 people. Well, guess what, I've never seen so many cars coming in here."

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The turnout was overwhelming, and it caused major traffic problems, Emmel said. 

Other than the traffic issues, Emmel said, the event went off without a hitch. He said seeing thousands of lanterns rise into the sky over Delta was a beautiful sight.

But some locals weren't happy.

Many commented on Facebook about the mess that was left behind. People reported finding lanterns in their fields, and they complained about the traffic.

Emmel said comments about litter from the event weren't accurate.

"Two hours after the event was over, they had staff people going through the community picking up the lanterns that had fallen," Emmel said. He noted that the fire company had trucks out in the event any lit lanterns landed and caused a fire. He also pointed out that it started to rain during that event, which decreased any fire risk.

Emmel thinks the "initial screaming and hollering and boo-hooing" was because some locals weren't aware the festival was planned and they didn't know what was happening when they saw thousands of lanterns floating in the sky above their small town.

The organizers "really planned it well," Emmel said. "It was just that some of the things that went on didn't go the way we thought it would."

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The reason The Lights Fest is being turned away from Delta now has to do with a fire risk, not that the event isn't wanted in Delta. 

"Right next to the area where they were gonna have the fest is a cornfield," Emmel said. Unless conditions change, the fire chief will not give approval for the event to be held, Emmel said. And if the chief does grant approval, it's likely it will happen too close to the date the event was scheduled for organizers to pull things together. 

But, Emmel said, there is interest in holding an event again in the future, maybe next year. The only thing he and other locals want to change, he said: "We'll make it smaller."

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