Sentosa Sky Lantern Festival is a flop and here's why.

 

The much anticipated Sky Lantern Festival turns out to be a big flop.

Expectations were raised when Sentosa announced the Singapore Sky Lantern Festival would be organised by Asian Couture and Boutique at the Palawan Green.

This Sky Lantern Festival is billed as a family-friendly event with good food and music. The highlight of the event will be the release of sky lanterns, ala Taiwan style, into the sky by attendees. This is similar to the paper's latern experience in Jiufen. Unfortunately it turns out to be Singapore's Fyre Festival.

To be clear, this is NOT a free event. The entry fee is at $53.47 per pax.

This was the expectation

@_raymond08 Light up the darkness with lantern dreams. Next schedule: February 24 at Shifen Sky lantern square. Which normally serves as the parking lot for Shifen Waterfall, about 20 minutes’ walk from Shifen station. Releases will be every 20 minutes from 6 to 9 PM, with 150 sky lanterns per release, for a total of 1350 sky lanterns. 📍Bus 795 from this stop at Muzha MRT (one stop before Taipei Zoo and Maokong Gondola) 📍Bus 846 from this stop in front of Ruifang train station #taiwan🇹🇼 #lanternfestival #pingxilanternfestival #ofwtaiwan #bucketlist ♬ Sparkle (From "Your Name") - Homura Records

Instead of seeing lanterns in the sky, this happens instead.

@zaobaosg 号称“新加坡首届天灯节”的活动吸引数百名公众到场，谁料“天灯”里没有蜡烛、只有LED灯，无法放飞，大批参与者纷纷要求退款，更有民众表示自己像是被骗了！#zaobaosg #sgnews #singapore #singaporetiktok #singaporean #livinginsg #sglife #laternfestival #skylatern #sentosa #refund #新加坡新闻 #新加坡 #新加坡人 #新加坡生活 #圣淘沙 #天灯节 #天灯 #退款 ♬ original sound - zaobaosg

According to various sources, participants were only given LED candles and a pen to pen their wishes on the lanterns. No lanterns were released into the sky due to unforeseen circumstances. As the weather was perfectly fine, the allegation made was that the organisers did not get approval to release the fire-lit sky lanterns. If that is the case, false advertising would appear to be made.

@tiagongsg Tiagong @sentosa_island lantern festival was a failure. Still need to call in police to settle the unhappy crowd #tiktok #foryoupage #fyp #foryou #viral #love #funny #memes #followme #cute #fun #music #happy #fashion #follow #comedy #bestvideo #tiktok4fun #thisis4u #loveyoutiktok #tiagong #tiagongsg #singaporenews #singapore #singaporeans #singaporean #sgviral #viralvideos #sgfyp #sgtiktok #sgtrending #sgviral #singaporeviral #sentosa #sentosaisland #sentosaislandsingapore #lanternfestival ♬ original sound - tiagongsg

To make matters worse, there was only one performance for the event, and the anticipated food stalls were limited.

A quick check with Asian Couture and Boutique's Facebook page draws a blank on the news. However, it was mentioned in Zaobaosg that a refund can be made.

Updated 1st March

No refund will be provided, but a rescheduled event will be around the 1st week of April. This unfair practice will probably not go down well with those affected. 

As of today, no confirmation of the date OR proof that the event has been approved to proceed. According to a CNA article, the same organiser (Ms Shiermie Bautista) postponed a similar event in Dubai in February last year, which has NOT occurred. Another article on CNA  states that no clearance has been given for the said rescheduled event.

Screenshots Ms Shiemie Bautisa FB

Ms Bautisa also claimed on her facebook posts that approval was given for the event. Interestingly, the approval was for 20 lanterns to be up at any one time. At the same time, only a maximum of 5 batches are allowed (100 lanterns). This hardly is how one would envision a sky lantern festival to be like. Moreover with over hundreds of tickets sold, it would seem like there is a shortage of lanterns to be released vs what was sold.

She further suggested that the cancellation was due to her f& b vendor holding the lantern wrongly and intentionally dropped in the grass and burned. This led to SCDF changing the guidelines on 20 Feb. However, in the same post, it was stated that SCDF did allow the use of Sky lanterns with candles, but due to an inadequate supply of extinguishers on the day of the event, they had to re-schedule the event. This chain of events does not explain why LED candles are available on the same day.

At the end of the day, the fact remains that no approval was given for the rescheduled event as of 1 March. Instead of refunding, the organiser suggests selling the tickets for those who cannot attend the rescheduled event even though there is NO set date or approval.

Hmm.Sounds pretty incredulous to us.