TAIPEI (TVBS News) — New Taipei City launched its 2025 Christmasland (2025新北歡樂耶誕城) festival Nov. 14 with a 45-day celebration featuring light displays, performances, and collaborative events with international entertainment brands. Mayor Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) announced the start of the annual Christmas event at the opening ceremony, which runs through late December and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
The festival collaborates with LINE FRIENDS and LINE FRIENDS minini, globally renowned character brands based in South Korea, featuring a circus carnival theme throughout the 45-day celebration. The opening show featured circus performances combining floating hot air balloons and aerial silk acrobatics, drawing thousands of spectators to the city hall plaza. The performances create an immersive circus carnival atmosphere for attendees, with daily shows scheduled throughout the festival period.
A Singaporean light sculpture team designed a 3D light projection show that debuted Thursday evening (Nov. 14) on New Taipei City Hall's exterior walls, attracting large crowds for the inaugural performance. The show uses advanced light and shadow techniques to animate LINE FRIENDS characters on the building facade, creating visual storytelling through projection mapping technology. The Tourism and Travel Department (觀旅局), New Taipei's tourism bureau, said the projection integrates with second-floor corridor LED displays and the Christmas tree to create a coordinated visual experience.
The light projection show features LINE FRIENDS characters Brown and Cony exchanging messages as the opening sequence, followed by appearances from other popular characters in the franchise. Performances run daily from 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., occurring every hour and half-hour throughout the festival period, with each show lasting approximately 10 minutes. The Tourism Department expects the projection shows to attract hundreds of thousands of visitors during the 45-day festival. ◼