DRIFT is a nightly wind-and-light installation along the Tatsumi waterway — three hundred translucent carp streamers held in a slow current of cyan and green light, settling overhead like fish that have stopped to rest in the stream. Timed entry, after dusk.
The night moves the way the current does — you arrive into stillness, the streamers wake, the river of light builds, and the whole channel releases at once. Nothing is rushed; every piece settles before the next begins.
Entry through the West Lantern Gate. The streamers hang almost still in the last warm light while the channel lamps come up cool and low along the bank.
Programmed fans along Zone 2–4 lift the field in a single slow pass. Three hundred carp turn to face upstream and begin to swim in place — the signature drift of the night.
A single coral streamer, forty metres long, is walked the length of the channel by hand while the cyan field dims to a held breath. The only warm light on the water all night.
The bank lamps flood to full and the entire field streams downstream together as paper lanterns are set onto the water — the river finally lets the current go.
Entry is capped per slot so the bank never crowds and every visitor gets the streamers overhead, not a wall of shoulders. Choose a night and a time band; your slot holds for fifteen minutes at the gate.
Free re-entry within your band · under-6 free
The installation runs the full Tatsumi reach, from the West Lantern Gate down to the Dragon Gate weir. Each zone is its own current — denser overhead near the bridges, open and quiet on the long straight.
Entry, ticket scan, the first quiet field.
Low streamers, reachable, made for children.
Programmed wind — the densest drift overhead.
Open water, fewest streamers, widest sky.
The single red carp walk. Centrepiece, 21:15.
River-green threading, river-grass projections.
The lantern release pool. Where the night ends.
Capacity is live and capped. Bands fill from the headliner outward — the 21:15 walk is always first to go. Tonight's open slots are highlighted in the current.
| Night | Entry band | Programme | Capacity | Held | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sat 3 May | 20:50 | The Current Wakes | 240 | 231 | Open |
| Sat 3 May | 21:30 | One Red Carp · Murai | 240 | 236 | 9 left |
| Sun 4 May | 20:10 | The Current Wakes | 240 | 240 | Full |
| Sun 4 May | 22:30 | Lantern Release | 300 | 182 | Open |
| Mon 5 May | 21:30 | One Red Carp · Murai | 240 | 240 | Full |
| Mon 5 May | 22:50 | Lantern Release | 300 | 296 | 4 left |
DRIFT began as a question from a kite-maker and a lighting designer: what if Children's Day wasn't a flag on a pole, but a river you could stand under?
The streamers are sewn from recycled parachute silk and printed with a single carp scale pattern that reads as movement only when the wind takes them. The light is held deliberately cool so the water keeps its own colour; the one warm carp is the whole point of the night. Every fan, lamp, and cable is programmed to the same slow current curve — nothing in the installation moves faster than the river it stands beside.
This is the fourth year on the Tatsumi reach. It is free to walk the bank after 22:30; timed entry funds the streamers, the safety crew, and the lanterns set onto the water at the close.
Three nights only, then the streamers come down and the Tatsumi goes quiet for another year. Reserve your band and slip into the current.