North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival Closing Early Due to Storm Damage

The North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival in Cary is having to close up shop early this year, as some of the displays sustained damage in the recent storms.

"Cary officials, Koka Booth Amphitheatre management, and Chinese Lantern Festival partner Tianyu Arts & Culture have made the difficult decision to close the North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival effective today, January 11, 2024," officials said in a news release. "The Festival was originally slated to end on Sunday, January 14, 2024."

When storms came through the region Tuesday, officials said that some of the larger, signature displays sustained "severe structural damage" that could not be repaired in time to open back up before the scheduled final day.

"Our heart breaks for those who had plans to attend the Festival in its final few days," said William Lewis, Cary’s Cultural Arts Manager. "Public safety is paramount, and we appreciate the careful analysis and thoughtful conversations with all stakeholders in making this joint decision. It’s a reminder that these grand outdoor art exhibits are ephemeral, and we enjoy and appreciate them while they are here."

But don't fret, if you missed the show this year, you can see what some of it looked like in their online flipbook here.

Refund options are coming in email to current ticketholders, and the Festival will be back for the 2024-2025 season from November 22, 20224 through January 12, 2025.

Streaming giant Netflix has a lot of highly-anticipated movies to offer their subscribers. From comedies to grisly dramas, the streamer's January releases feature some of our favorite actors and producers. With the writers and actors strikes over, streamers and production companies are releasing projects that have been held off due to production being shut down in the latter half of 2023.

For Netflix, one of the streamer’s highest-profile new series, 3 Body Problem, was bumped out of 2023 and into 2024. This is the first post-Game of Thrones show from creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss, arriving in the Spring. The sci-fi drama has been in the works since 2020, starring Eiza González, Benedict Wong, and Game of Thrones alums John Bradley, Liam Cunningham, and Jonathan Pryce. Additionally, the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender series is just as highly anticipated for fans of the beloved original Nickelodeon animated series. It will be coming to the streamer in late February.

Sofia Vergara stars as real-life Colombian cartel boss Griselda Blanco in a miniseries, looking completely unrecognizable. In it, she creates one of the most profitable cartels in history. With six episodes that are each an hour long, Griselda creator Eric Newman said Vergara was perfect for the role "not only because she, like Griselda, is a single mother who came to America from Colombia with nothing and built an empire, but because it was unexpected of her to do. Sofia has been thought of one way, a beautiful and brilliant comedic actress, and she is so much more than that."

For the movie fanatics, Netflix has a few standout films kicking off January alone. Another standout project is Society of the Snow, the harrowing story of the Uruguayan rugby team that crash-landed in the Andes mountains in 1972. Kevin Hart offers a new comedy in a heist film, and Dan Levy directs and stars in a dramedy titled Good Grief. Coming in March, Millie Bobby Brown stars in a fantasy action movie called Damsel. Later in the month, Lindsay Lohan stars in her second rom-com, Irish Wish. April brings Zack Snyder's sequel, Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver.

Take a look below at the new additions that will be released in January 2024 on Netflix:

Spanish director J.A. Bayona’s thriller Society of the Snow debuts on Thursday, January 4. The film is the latest cinematic retelling of the miraculous story of the Uruguayan rugby team that crash-landed on a glacier in the heart of the Andes in 1972. The survivors join forces and become each other's best hope as they navigate their way back home, resorting to extreme measures to stay alive.

The following day on Friday, January 5, Netflix debuts dramedy Good Grief, written, directed, and starring Schitt's Creek's Dan Levy. In it, he plays a London-based artist who spends a year mourning his husband before making a startling discovery about their relationship on a trip to Paris with his best friends.

One week later on Friday, January, Kevin Hart stars in a plane heist comedy film called Lift. The story centers on Cyrus Whitaker (Hart), the leader of an international heist team who gets enlisted to steal $500 millions worth of gold from a mid-air passenger plane before the fortune ends up in the wrong hands. The ensemble cast includes Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Vincent D’Onofrio, Úrsula Corberó, Billy Magnussen, Jacob Batalon, Jean Reno and Sam Worthington.

Sofia Vergara will shock all her Modern Family fans as she dramatically shifts away from comedy with this miniseries. Debuting on the streamer on January 25, Vergara plays the ruthless Colombian “Godmother,” Griselda Blanco, who created one of the most profitable cartels in history. The six one-hour episodes come from the creators and executive producers of Narcos and has been described as a “cousin” to those two shows.