Hundreds of attendees were left disappointed and confused over how a "sky lantern festival" event played out.

Despite the event being marketed as one where sky lanterns would light up the night sky over Sentosa, none of the lanterns took flight.

Lanterns were still distributed, along with battery-operated LED candles instead.

Expectations vs reality

Since around November last year, the event had been promoted using slick images of sky lanterns taking flight into the night sky.

Sky lanterns not meant to fly freely, ended up not flying at all

The sky lanterns were never meant to fly freely, and the plan was to have them secured with 60-metre-long strings attached to the ground.

The lanterns were arranged to be released for their controlled flights in five separate batches, from 7:30pm onwards.

On the event day itself, organisers pointed to the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) as the reason why the sky lantern release could not go ahead as planned.

This was in spite of the fact that organisers had mentioned "guidelines" set by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and SCDF in their promotional materials and on various event pages online.

Commenting on this, a Mothership reader who attended the event opined that the lantern flying had been "falsely marketed", as it appeared that the authorities had not given the go-ahead for the event in the first place.

Mothership has reached out to SCDF for more information.

Confusion at the event

Aside from the fact that there were no sky lanterns released, even the collection of lanterns and LED candles was a fraught process involving a single long queue for hundreds of attendees.

In the midst of this, attendees — who had paid S$50 each for tickets — apparently received no prior notice of the changes to the event.

There was only ambiguously-phrased signage at the venue itself stating that the event had been "delayed", raising the question of whether the event would even still be happening on Feb. 21.

"Music festival"

Attendees had been told to expect a "music festival" and performances from 3pm.

One Mothership reader, Quan Wei, arrived at the venue at 3:45pm and found that the venue was fenced up and that gates were not open to attendees.

"There were signs set up to announce the delay with no additional information of the new timing," he said.

At 5:30pm, event set up was still not done and the gates were not open. "In fact, vendors were taking down their stalls," he added.

Another reader, Jay, saw police speaking to vendors, and surmised that the organisers may not have obtained permits for F&B.

"[The vendors] didn't sell their items even when they opened the barricade for people to enjoy the music. That’s a huge tell tale sign," said Jay.

The gates were eventually opened to attendees at around 6:10pm, according to Quan Wei.

Vendor had to provide an update over sound system

Attendees also say the organisers were initially nowhere to be found at the venue itself, and that it was left to a vendor to update attendees.

A man representing one of the vendors made use of the event's sound system to inform the attendees that they could apply for a refund, and that vendors themselves had been there since 1pm that day.

He also offered free services to attendees at his booth, and apologised to the gathering crowd.

"I think there's some unforeseen circumstances, so the organisers are doing their best to service everyone. Really apology about that," he can be heard saying in a video shared by a Mothership reader, Sarah Wang.

All this while, more attendees continued to make their way down to the venue in Sentosa, as the release of the sky lanterns was supposed to take place from 7:30pm and supposedly no updates were shared via email or other platforms.

LED candles as replacement

Sometime after 5pm, attendees were told that lanterns would not be able to fly, and that the candles had been replaced with LED lights instead.

Then, the "music festival" began. "They had one violinist and one DJ play," said Jay.

"People started queuing up because they announced you could get the lantern to hang on barricade or bring home," the reader recalled.

"Event is still happening"

Amid the confusion as to the status of the event and whether it would be going on, workers at the event — wearing neon vests, and presumably tasked with crowd control/ushering — told attendees that the event was still happening, although the sky lanterns would not be able to fly.

However, there was some confusion over the collection of lanterns.

Wang was told that collecting the lantern would affect one's eligibility for a refund, though this was not announced to the crowd.

She and her group decided to leave soon after, rather than continue queueing.

Others say event staff initially scanned the tickets of those who collected lanterns and LED candles, though the items were eventually distributed without ticket verification.

"Release was rescheduled": Organiser

Meanwhile, an email from one of the organisers to Mothership on Feb. 21 at around 7:10pm said:

"SCDF changed the Sky Lantern program due to unforeseen circumstances of the wind. Hence, we will be giving away the Lanterns on site and choose the timing for the release. Tonight the actual release was rescheduled. Apologies for the inconvenienced. Thank you"

The organiser did not respond to further queries via email.

Mothership also managed to get in touch with the organisers through a phone number provided on the event's Facebook page.

The organiser said, at around 1am on Feb. 22, that the "segment" of the event featuring the release of "tethered sky lanterns" had been rescheduled to Mar. 2.

Mothership followed up with more questions, but was unable to obtain any further replies on what was planned for Mar. 2.

Attendees could "release" wishes by tying them to barricades: Organiser

At the event itself, some attendees managed to get in touch with one of the organisers, Steven Lau, whose contact number was provided on the signage at the event.

Lau apparently told attendees that the event was ongoing, except that there would not be any sky lanterns released.

He told Mothership via WhatsApp on Feb. 22 that the changes to the event were to "prioritise the safety of our attendees".

"We are unable to release the sky lanterns with FIRE of the event," he wrote.

Lau said the organisers provided lanterns, pens, and candle LED lights. This, he said, was "for attendees to still participate in the tradition of writing and to pen their wishes".

He also said attendees were invited to tie their lanterns to barricades at the event to "release" their wishes.

Lau told Mothership on Feb. 22 that the team was looking into the matter of refunds.

Lau said: "we are currently in discussions with our team and will provide an update within 2 weeks".

Mothership reached out to Lau and another member of the organising team to get more information on why the sky lantern flying was called off at the last minute, to ask whether the organisers had any agreement with CAAS and SCDF prior to the event, and to ask why some F&B vendors packed up their stalls before the event was open to attendees.

However, those messages were left unanswered as of time of writing.

Top photo via Mothership readers

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