The opening ceremony for the "2018 Penghu International Light Festival" was held in conjunction with "2018 Most Beautiful Bays in the World (MBBW) Carnival and Annual Meeting" at the Guanyin Pavilion Waterfront Park on September 27th. President Tsai Ing-Wen welcomed the representatives of the participating countries and commended the efforts of the Ministry of Transportation and Communication (MOTC), the MOTC’s Tourism Bureau and Penghu’s officials for increasing Taiwan’s international visibility and putting the country onto the international stage.
The "2018 Penghu International Light Festival" lighting ceremony was held by President Tsai, the MBBW Chairman, the Climate Change Committee Chairman, former Ambassador to France Lu Ching-Lung, Legislator Yang Yao, MOTC Minister Wu Hong-Mou, the MOTC Tourism Bureau Director Chou Yung-Hui, and County Governor Chen Kuang-Fu. The Guanyin Pavilion Waterfront Park was instantaneously filled with dancing lights that dazzled the crowd. The ceremony marked the commencement of the 2018 Penghu International Light Festival to build Taiwan’s first interactive ocean lighting park!
In order to promote autumn tourism in Penghu, extend the tourism season and create new event highlights was the strategy for the new Penghu International Lights Festival. Legislator Yang Yao’s 2 consecutive years of support and suggestions saw him and members from Penghu National Scenic Administration assess the Guanyin Pavilion for the event during June of this year. Legislator Yang actively strove to host the Penghu International Light Festival with the Tourism Bureau and confirmed that the event will be held from September 27th to November 3^rd. The third “Penghu Autumn Festival” brand will conducted through a combination of culture, art, music, sports and community experience and will rebuild Penghu’s fall and winter tourism atmosphere.
In 2017, the Tourism Bureau of the MOTC responded to the United Nations World Tourism Organization's ecotourism mainstay by researching and promoting the “TOURISM 2020” sustainable tourism development strategy. The Tourism Bureau also established 2018 as the year for “Bay Tourism Year,” using the exploration of Taiwan’s 10 outlying islands as the theme for Taiwan’s tourism. The theme is to make offshore tourism and the islands coexist, to promote regional prosperity, and work towards the sustainable development of the tourism industry. Penghu county has 3 of the 10 offshore islands: Jibei, Qimei, and Yuwengdao, which show Penghu’s rich tourism and human resources sufficient for developing international vacation islands. The combination of autumn and winter event marketing can definitely create new highlights for Penghu.
"The 3^rd Penghu Autumn Festival" event series includes The Swim across Penghu Bay – One of the Most Beautiful Bays in the World, the Penghu Chrysanthemum Island Cross-sea Marathon, the Gaillardia Island Kite Exhibition, the 2018RS: ONE World Championship, and the Gaillardia Island Cup for various sporting championships. These events will also be connected to the exciting and rich tourism promotion events of the 2018 MBBW Carnival and Annual Meeting and Island Carnival. This year, the specially-planned "Penghu International Light Festival" will be held in Guanyin Pavilion Leisure Park. It will have 18 light shows, and 12 large-scale evening concerts with fireworks to light up the evening sky Penghu’s autumn and winter. There are exciting events every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and event series last all the way until the end of the year. Domestic and foreign visitors alike are welcome to enjoy themselves in Penghu.
This festival will break through the restrictions of Xiying Rainbow Bridge’s structure by setting up controllable lighting on vertical piers and columns of the bridge to increase the area available of lighting and giving audiences an entirely new visual experience. In addition, Penghu’s Twin Heart Stone Weir has been combined with lighting to create a one-of-a-kind light theater, showcasing entirely new visual effects and creating an impactful and immersive visual feast of light using a 360-degree all-round stage. This festival also has custom-built interactive lighting devices, which allows visitors to change the colors of the lights on the Rainbow Bridge when touching a magical sphere. The 10-minute "Sea God Festival" light show will shake the audiences’ visual and auditory senses as the performers' gestures are tightly knitted into light animations, leading the audience into the story of Sea God. The lights, music, and elements of Sea God will be presented using an innovative and interactive manner with technology and lighting. The interactive presentation is an invitation for people to embark on a magical adventure on Gaillardia Island, and experience a variety of interesting interactions with the lights.
With the 2018 MBBW Annual Meeting held in Penghu, the Gaillardia Island Miniature Art Festival took off and has a planned theme of “The Big Winds Blow” to direct 3 domestic and foreign artists to Penghu. Three landscape installations that can interact with the sea breeze will be built within the Guanyin Pavilion Park. The first piece of installation art were designed by Polish artist Jan Ankiersztajn using cement, wood, and metal. The entire piece will be movable and is wind-driven. The second piece will be designed by Malaysian artist Shahril Faisal using bamboo, wood, stainless steel and metal-bearing materials in the shape of a three-dimensional top. The edges and sides of the second piece will be decorated with LED lights and with the wind rotating it, the top’s spinning effect can be seen at night. The domestic artist Fan Cheng-Zong will be created in the unique shape of the sea urchin. The piece’s cellular appearance is interlaced with discs that can be continuously rotated by the sea breeze. The sides of the discs have 2 different colors and the breeze constantly changes the colors of the disc. The pieces of landscape art also create a dialogue space between humanity and nature, and handcraft workshops will be held so that people can interact with international artists.
Tourists that visit Penghu in the autumn and winter will receive endless benefits with the introduction of the "^rd Penghu Autumn Festival Discount Passport," developed in conjunction with Penghu’s tourism industry. In addition to introducing information such as the Autumn Festival’s events, seasonal tours, travel services, and transportation, the passport has also combined with high-quality businesses to provide discount programs on food, accommodation, travel, shopping, and other beneficial discount deals. Just present the discount page and you can enjoy special offers at designated shops! For example, spend NT$ 3,000 at the Profond Pier3 duty-free shop in a single purchase to enjoy a 1-time NT$150 discount. Get 50% off on the second item of the same purchase from the high-quality “The Best Seafood Sauce from Penghu Islands” souvenir shop, and get up to 60% off on Penghu’s legal hostel accommodations. The various amount of discount offers shows the passion Penghu has for welcoming domestic and foreign tourists. In addition, there is a chance to win more than NT$ 350,000 worth of Penghu travel prizes! The prizes include a 3-day 2-night Tour of the Penghu Port at night for 4 people; a 3-day 2-night tour of Gaillardia Island's 22 Alley for a family of 6, a 4-day 3-night ocean rainbow island-hopping trip for 2 and many more! People are welcome to grab their own passport, invite friends and family to join in on having fun around Penghu!