Obviously the name is a work in progress, haha.

But I was taking a gander over at the ol' Subetapedia and I realized that there is a huge lull in holidays between Vesnali and the Subeta Anniversary! So I got to thinking, would would be a nice holiday? Why, what better than a summer festival? Food stalls, fireworks, cute outfits and some fun events for us to participate in and tide us over!

And then I thought, maybe Shengui Guo would be the perfect place for this! With all the new pets and shops and things rolling out from there, and how well it's been received, maybe it would be a great place to host a Summer Lights Festival, inspired by lantern festivals, Japanese fireworks displays, summer yukata, and gorgeous renditions of Chinatown throughout the world! Some of the things I thought might be included:

• A lantern ceremony, released along the river of Shengui Guo at night. Either, you could make wishes and buy little paper boats and set them loose during the day (maybe you could see yours at night?) or send small gifts adrift and catch them while you were attending the festival? Or, all of them could be saved up during the event and released at once!

• Food stalls including night market delights from around the world- curries, bibimbap, chicken rice, yakitori, mango everything, shaved ice... all kinds of tasty food. There's also not a ton of Thai food or the less-mentioned countries of Asia (Laos, Vietnam, etc) so maybe it would be a good chance to include some other cultures?

• Fireworks! I know we have some on the site, but maybe you could give your friend a firework or firecracker, and it could be a temporary HA item, like kisses and snowballs?

• Summer festival clothing! Yukata was the first thing that came to mind, but any kind of fun summer-weather garment would be nice! Maybe even seasonal offerings from Fine Fabrics?

• Festival games! Rubber malarky fishing, pin the tail on the Kumos, etc. They don't all have to be flash or anything, but everyone likes games!

• Another team event- tug of war? fireworks 'paint the sky ___ color' event? Colored paper boat drive? Love 'em or hate 'em, they get a lot of site traffic and participation!

Does any of this seem like a good idea? What would you like to see in a summer festival? Let me know if this seems like something fun!

the lack of holidays in the summer is usually not a problem, because they like to get some kind of unique event to fill the time. it isn't the same every year, which is great. defining a holiday means it would have to be the same every year, or at least similar.

I think your idea is pretty cute! However, it's a good thing that there isn't a set schedule in the summer imo. Many people take that time to be outdoors more, go on vacations, etc. It's also nice to have a break before the barrage of things going on during Subeta fall-winter.

I would support this theme for an event, but not as a permanent Subeta holiday or filling the summer lull with anything consistent.

This sounds very fun idea for an event. Support!

I would fully support a summer lights theme mostly just because I love the art that could come from it (the lantern scene in Tangled comes to mind alongside Chinese festivals - all gorgeous feasts for the eyes). But I've also really loved the spontaneity of summer and all the different things we've had over the last several years. Of course I'd also love to revisit some of the old themes. Actually mostly just the ol' excavation site (has it really been five years already?). That and the masquerade murder plot were my two favorites we've ever had, so I'm just really biased there.

In all super serious though - The lantern festival would be really fitting now, since Shengui Gao hasn't had much going on besides a lot of Asian-themed items and our new (lovely) pet, so this really could be a glorious tie-in.

I agree with others on this, I'd totally support this as a one-time thing, but I enjoy the variable summer event-- peka-boo, quest-a-thon, book drive et al.