RiSE lantern festival returns to Jean this weekend

The Bureau of Land Management approved the release of thousands of flying lanterns on the Jean dry lake bed after months of discussions with event organizers over their traffic and cleanup plans.

As many as 13,000 paying customers are expected to participate in each of the inspirational lantern releases scheduled for Friday and Saturday nights.

“We’ve got a really good plan in place and the personnel to implement it,” said Steve Leslie, supervisory outdoor recreation planner for the BLM in Las Vegas.

Major transportation problems at the end of the inaugural RiSE Festival in 2014 left hundreds of participants stranded in the dark for nearly four hours as they waited for buses to take them back to their vehicles, parked 11 miles away at the Gold Strike casino in Jean.

BLM officials also weren’t satisfied with the job festival organizers did cleaning up after themselves, prompting the agency to reject RiSE’s application for a special recreation permit in 2015, Leslie said.

For the past three years, the festival has been held on the Moapa River Indian Reservation, about 35 miles northeast of Las Vegas and beyond the reach of federal land managers.

‘We’ve always wanted to go back’

Now the event is back where it started, this time with the promise of better transportation, lighting and logistical support than it had during the debacle in 2014.

“We’ve always wanted to go back to Jean,” said Dan Hill, co-creator of RiSE.

He said the sweeping playa provides the perfect setting for the lantern release, but he acknowledged that the festival needed to “mature” before it was ready to return to the site.

Leslie said organizers were relying on a lot of volunteer help that first year, but now they hired a professional production company and trained personnel to set up and run the festival, direct traffic and clean up afterward.

They also jettisoned the shuttle-only transportation method in favor of on-site parking next to the festival grounds, he said. “The majority of participants will be driving their own vehicles.”

Hill said about 80 percent of audience members are expected to park at the festival site, where temporary roads have been built to accommodate the traffic.

The Metropolitan Police Department and Nevada Highway Patrol will be on hand to assist with traffic control.

As for the post-flight cleanup, Hill said the goal is to collect every one of the biodegradable, paper and bamboo lanterns, most of which are expected to land within about a mile of where they are launched. The cleanup crew also will pick up any “pre-existing litter” they find, he said.

BLM to monitor flights

The BLM has temporarily closed the area for the event.

Leslie said the BLM has been monitoring the set-up work for the festival and will have several staff members, himself included, on site throughout the festivities Friday and Saturday.

The agency has also assigned five law enforcement officers and five firefighters to be there in case of emergency.

Under the terms of the special recreation permit, festival organizers are required to reimburse the BLM for the costs associated with reviewing the group’s application and monitoring the event.

Tickets to RiSE start at $129 each for adults, and Hill expects both nights to sell out.

Leslie said organizers were granted a separate film permit so a portion of the “American Idol” television show can be shot during the festival.

The one remaining wild card is the weather.

Leslie said heavy rain or sustained winds above 9 mph could force the BLM to delay or cancel the lantern release.

“Our main concern will be whether we can get people safely onto and off of the dry lake bed,” he said.

The forecast looked worrisome early in the week, Hill said, but right now the weather looks good.

Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @RefriedBrean on Twitter.