CIBC Lunarfest

We quite enjoyed the shadow puppet play but I would suggest to line up early for this. It’s very popular with the families and the seating in the theatre is limited. First come first served. There’s a glow in the dark aquarium exhibit setup in tribute to the play’s characters.
A few giveaways there, I spun the wheel and won a dragons mask, got some free candy at the CIBC VIP lounge (yum rootbeer and coffee flavour). You can also build a latern, supplies are limited though.
Oh and if you start to get hungry, and don’t want to trek to (Spadina & Dundas) Chinatown, the café near the skating rink was serving some Taiwanese food.
I was surprised by how popular this event was considering it’s in the middle of the winter so get there early.
The puppet play was the highlight of the night, next was the photobooth where one can don some props like dragons and scrolls.

To be honest I didn’t expect much from the event, yet the description on the website seemed to promise a lot more.
Although they’ve had previous events in Vancouver, this is the first time in Toronto. We got to the Habourfront Centre, and I thought there would be more of a spectacle for this event. There were no signage for this to direct us to the right place. You wouldn’t have known this was going on unless you knew already.
The event takes place in one of the event rooms and the small atrium out side of it. It did seem less like a corporate sponsored event, and more like a high school play evening.
We did get «hot asian beverages», a small cup of ginger tea, when we got there. There were two lines at the ‘entrance’ and we were stopped. We weren’t allowed to go in the priority line because we weren’t CIBC customers (show your card), so we directed to the other line. I don’t see why it even mattered at this point because there was no one there. I thought they were going to give us a spiel or make us sign up for something, but that wasn’t the case. We were stopped again, because we couldn’t go into the exhibit room with our hot drink we just got. Instead we stood awkwardly in the line (what line? we were the only ones there), to finish the drink.
Finally we walk though the small side door to the exhibit. It was quite nice, but along with the cheesy music and tv screen, the ‘art’ wasn’t appreciated as it should be. The lights were cool, and I guess nice for kids, but there wasn’t much else to this. 4 big installations. I can’t describe the feeling of amateur and lack of… professionalism… I felt in here, yet I was sad that the art wasn’t appreciated for what it should be. It was nice, colourful and big.
You come out into the small atrium in the front. It’s crowded. They could have had some of this up near the empty entrance to the area. At least it would feel less awkward, and folks could look at CIBC paraphenlia whilst sipping on their tea. And it would help make the even seem happening.
You get a red pocket with a chocolate coin in it, there was a draw for a Silver Coin (and by draw, you are reaching into a box full of cards, and hoping to choose the right one), a spin wheel to win a pen, dragon hat or chocolate coin (which I already had), two tables to put together the hat and a photo booth.
All might have been okay if it wasn’t so crowded (and it’s winter people have big jackets).
Overall, don’t take your time to come out to this unless already in the area, or you want to go skating as well. So glad this didn’t cost anything, I would have been so mad.
It is what it is. I hope someone is reading this, because the event could be improved still over the next few days!