Nashville Zoo announced Wednesday it has canceled its annual Zoolumination lantern festival for 2026 after visa applications for artisans from China who help construct the event’s displays were denied.
The zoo said the festival, which it has hosted since 2019, relies on the “specialized craftsmanship of InLight Festival Group and their artisans that travel from Zigong, China to construct over 1,000 lanterns featured throughout the Zoo.”
“Unfortunately, visa applications for this year’s artisans were denied,” the zoo said, adding that it was unable to find a solution that would allow Zoolumination to continue in 2026.
Despite the cancellation, the zoo said it will still offer a holiday event during the 2026 season.
Nashville Zoo will debut Glow Wild, a new holiday light show featuring glowing wildlife displays, holiday-themed installations, and an 85-foot synchronized Christmas tree. Glow Wild will open November 13, 2026, and run nightly through January 3, 2027. The event is scheduled to run from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. each night.
The cancellation of Zoolumination, which the Zoo described as due to “visa issues,” comes amid a broader decline in U.S. visa approvals under the Trump administration.
In March, data from the U.S. State Department reportedly showed the U.S. issued about 250,000 fewer (11 percent) permanent resident and temporary visas from January through August 2025 than during the same period in 2024. The decrease included visas issued to students, workers, and family members of U.S. citizens and legal residents.
China was among the countries experiencing significant declines. Visas issued to Chinese and Indian nationals combined fell by about 84,000 during the first eight months of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024.
While it remains unclear whether the visa denials cited by the Nashville Zoo are connected to the broader declines in U.S. visa approvals, the zoo said the denials prevented the Chinese artisans from traveling to Nashville for this year’s event.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “Nashville Zoo” by Michael Hicks. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
