On a recent fall evening, Lulu Huang stands before a sea of glowing roses, tens of thousands radiating multiple colors. Nearby are dragons, fairies and other fantastical characters demanding attention as part of a nearly unfathomable tapestry of LED lights.
“A lot of people take pictures here. It’s like a selfie wonderland,” the San Jose resident says.
Some 5 million lights were used to create the latest Bay Area installation of Imaginarium 360, a Chinese lantern festival that set up shop in August for a two-month run at Pleasanton’s Stoneridge Shopping Center. It’s one of nine productions that Huang’s company — the Fremont-based International Culture Exchange Group — has on deck in California and Arizona in 2024. Imaginarium will return to Sacramento’s Cal Expo later this month for its annual winter holiday stand. And a dozen more venues will be set aglow in 2025 — including a springtime return to Milpitas’ Great Mall.
Erin Aura and her grandson Kaiden, 1, of Pleasanton, interact with the Imaginarium light installation at the Stoneridge Mall parking lot in Pleasanton on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
Huang beams as she passes the light displays in Pleasanton, pausing for a second here and there to take in the sounds of excited children. It reminds her of her own happy times as a child in China, where lantern festivals are a tradition.
Huang moved to San Jose in 1994, where she pursued a common Silicon Valley path. She ended up running a computer networking company, Global PC Direct, in Fremont. Yet, the memories of the Chinese lantern festivals stayed with her. She remembered how they inspired her — and she wanted to do something similar to inspire others. The goal, in part, was to create “something that doesn’t exist in real life.”
Founder Lulu Huang’s Imaginarium light display at the Stoneridge Shopping Center in Pleasanton on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
So she took a gamble and went to work creating her first Chinese lantern festival.
“I had no clue what I was doing,” she admits. “That (first) one was just out of my passion. I did not think I was doing it for my career.”
She also had concerns that people wouldn’t like what she came up with.
“What if I had bad taste?” she says with a teasing grin. “People would throw tomatoes at me.”
But, she decided, “You have to trust your vision.”
And what is her vision?
“I want to see the world through children’s eyes.”
Founder Lulu Huang in a photo booth at her Imaginarium light display at the Stoneridge Shopping Center in Pleasanton, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
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That first festival in 2011— dubbed Global Winter Wonderland — was a massive production. Held in the parking lot at California’s Great America in Santa Clara, it was a big success, drawing rave reviews from attendees. Huang believes it was the first ever held in this country.
“Now, the Chinese lantern festival is very popular in the U.S.” she says.
As she began hosting lantern festivals throughout the year, she changed the name from Global Winter Wonderland to Imaginarium.
The glowing objects that inhabit Imaginarium’s many exhibits are created using steel wire frames. Lights are placed inside and then the whole thing is covered with colorful silk. The creations are handmade at Imaginarium’s factory in China.
“They have a history of over a thousand years,” Huang says of the decision to have these creations built in China. “That’s why they are good at it.”
An Imaginarium event holds more than giant lanterns, though. Huang and her staff design fun attractions and interactive settings, too, including an elaborate lighted maze — although that’s not one that fans are likely to see Huang wandering through.
“I’m afraid of going inside, even though it’s my own production,” she says. “I am very bad at directions.”
As beautiful as it is now, Imaginarium is an ever-changing work in progress, with Huang tinkering with the formula and adding and refining attractions to create a playground where people of all ages can let their imaginations run wild.
“We try to build a place where people can forget about reality,” Huang says.
Details: Imaginarium360 will open at Sacramento’s Cal Expo at 1600 Exposition Blvd. this holiday season and Milpitas’ Great Mall, 447 Great Mall Drive, this spring. Ticket prices typically start at $19. Find schedules and more information at imaginarium360.com.