More than 1 million people on Saturday visited the Taiwan Lantern Festival in Taipei, the highest single-day figure for this year’s edition of the annual event, the Tourism Bureau said in a statement on Sunday.
However, safety measures were not required, as the crowd did not hit the 90 percent capacity threshold required for their implementation, it said.
The mild and dry weather over the weekend attracted large numbers of visitors to lantern festivals across Taipei’s 12 districts, it said, adding that the weekend being the last of the winter school holidays was an added factor.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The number of passengers using the five Taipei MRT stations near major displays set up in the city reached more than 300,000 on Saturday, an increase of about 130,000 from a year earlier, the Taipei City Department of Information and Tourism said in a separate statement on Sunday.
The five stations comprised Taipei 101/World Trade Center on the Red Line, and four on the Blue Line along Zhongxiao East Road.
Access to Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall Station was controlled to limit crowding after the displays were turned off at 10pm, the department said, adding that measures were not necessary at other stations.
The northern part of the hall features the largest lantern and light installations, and is the location most likely to reach 90 percent capacity, which would be about 189,000 visitors, the bureau said.
The festival’s main attraction this year, an exhibition titled Brilliant Light of the Jade Hare, features a 22m-tall “robot” displayed at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.
If the site reaches 90 percent capacity, festival staff would advise arrivals of safety concerns and direct them to other display sites nearby, the bureau said.
Scheduled light shows would be suspended and staff would guide visitors into the memorial hall building to avoid a crush, while safety text messages would be sent to mobile phones in the area, the bureau said.
This year’s lantern festival is open to the public free of charge from 5pm to 10pm daily until Sunday.
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