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Lantern Fest Puts Glow Into Night Sky

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (CBS4)- It's an ancient festival from Asia transplanted as a "for profit" venture in America-- the Lantern Festival.

In China the lantern festivals are celebrated on the 15th day of the first lunar month. Lanterns colored red are said to celebrate good fortune.

It seems to have brought good fortune in America to a company that has turned "Lantern Fest" into a touring phenomenon.

Instead of Indy cars that once sped around the track, Pikes Peak International Raceway south of Colorado Springs was filled with thousands of people gathered to gaze in awe at lights on Nov. 7.

Lantern Fest
(credit: CBS)

Each person at the event was given a lantern and the ingredients to make s'mores. Families and friends gathered around campfires roasting marshmallows, eating sandwiches and listening to music from the stage waiting for the sky to grow dark.

Then the lanterns came out. Using a tiki torch, each group would fill their lantern with heated air. A small square fuel cell provided the flame to help launch the illuminated objects into the sky.

Together the crowd gathered counted down the final seconds. Then the lanterns were launched in a kind of slow motion orchestration that turned the night sky into what looked like a man made Milky Way.

Lantern Fest
(credit: CBS)

White, orange, pink and green bags of light floated into the sky like miniature hot air
balloons. After the fuel cell burns out the lanterns float back to earth and are biodegradable.

A fleet of fire trucks was on stand by and extinguishers were strategically placed throughout the area to keep this from taking on the name of a festival in Nevada called Burning Man.

All this was work of a company called Sack Lunch Productions in Salt Lake City which puts on the "Lantern Fests" in cities around the country.

Lantern Fest
The Lantern Fest at Pikes Peak International Raceway (credit: CBS)

It's a publicly traded company doing various types of productions. Sack Lunch reported $4.8 million in revenue for fiscal year 2014. It plans to return to light up the Colorado skies next spring.

CBS4's Rick Sallinger is a Peabody award winning reporter who has been with the station more than two decades doing hard news and investigative reporting. Follow him on Twitter @ricksallinger.

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