Guyi Garden in Jiading district, Shanghai, has confirmed that their lantern exhibition, one of the two major annual lantern exhibitions held for the last seven years in Shanghai, will be canceled this year out of safety concerns, according to the official Weibo account of the Information Office of Shanghai Municipality on Sunday.
The garden said they decided to cancel the exhibition because the event was oversubscribed given the limited capacity of the garden, based on attendance figures from former years.
Instead, they will enhance security to better prepare for the Spring Festival Temple Fair, another large-scale event during Spring Festival.
Apart from Jiading, other districts in Shanghai have also called off ongoing or planned public activities and business promotions to avoid the repetition of the New Year countdown tragedy.
The cancellation could be a reflection of the concerns and lack of confidence in crowd control after the unexpected deadly stampede in Shanghai.
Thirty-six people died in a fatal stampede during New Year's celebrations late on the night of Dec 31 in Shanghai due to the lack of crowd control.