China's Light Illuminates the Ice and Snow Spectacle! Lighting Enterprises Help the Asian Winter Games Shine on the World Stage!

On February 7, 2025, the 9th Asian Winter Games (hereinafter referred to as the "Asian Winter Games") grandly opened in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province. This is another major comprehensive international ice and snow sports event hosted by China following the Beijing Winter Olympics, and also the third time China has hosted the Asian Winter Games after the 1996 Harbin Asian Winter Games and the 2007 Changchun Asian Winter Games. From indoor venue lighting to outdoor nightscape lighting, numerous lighting enterprises such as Foshan Lighting, Guangyang Electric, Tongfang Co., Ltd., and Jingri Technology provided comprehensive lighting facility support for this world-class comprehensive sports event with Chinese lighting. They illuminated countless brilliant moments both inside and outside the venues, injecting dazzling light and shadow into the games through the dual empowerment of "technology + art," and showcasing the hard-core strength of Made in China to the world.

The opening and closing ceremonies of this Asian Winter Games pioneered a presentation method combining main and branch venues, using the world's largest ice and snow theme park — Harbin Ice and Snow World — as the branch venue, and setting the main torch tower within the Ice and Snow World park. As the landscape lighting solution service provider for the Harbin Ice and Snow World scenic area, Foshan Lighting provided a total of over 40,000 sets of smart ice and snow landscape lighting cold-region LED luminaires, tailoring a landscape lighting illumination plan specifically for Harbin Ice and Snow World.

Image source: Xinhua News Agency

Under the night sky, laser light sources and colorful optical fiber lighting [[Luminaire]]s shine together, illuminating the main tower of 'Asian Unity', outlining the magnificent silhouette of the 'Super Ice Slide', highlighting the majestic posture of 'Snow Che', and decorating the 1 million square meter park into a glittering dreamlike scene, fully showcasing the charm of ice and snow light to global guests.

Over the years, Foshan Lighting has repeatedly participated in the landscape lighting of Harbin Ice and Snow World. From using traditional light sources specially designed for high-cold regions, to upgrading from static to dynamic lighting with LED green light sources, and now applying laser light sources with higher luminance, longer range, and stronger penetration, Foshan Lighting creates a unique visual impact and artistic atmosphere for the scenic area. With lighting technology, Foshan Lighting continuously injects innovative vitality into Harbin's ice lantern art. Meanwhile, all products are integrated with the scenic area's remote smart control system to achieve full-color dynamic lighting linkage, providing visitors with a more dazzling and rich visual experience.

The opening ceremony featured rapidly changing and alternating bright and dim lighting, imposing extremely high requirements on luminaires. Sanan Optoelectronics' eye-care lamps stood out with their exemplary quality, full-spectrum healthy light, and unique functions, becoming the ideal lighting choice for the podium of this Asian Winter Games. They can coexist harmoniously with stage lighting effects while providing necessary brightness and comfort, meeting the dual demands for high-quality lighting at the opening ceremony podium.

As a subsidiary of Tsinghua Tongfang, Beijing Tongfang Optoelectronic Environment Co., Ltd. provides technological services for the key link in the quality improvement guarantee project for the Asian Winter Games: the optimization of nightscape lighting for streets in Nangang District, Harbin, and the 'City Living Room' node.

With the goal of 'One Asian Winter Games, One Improved City', Tongfang Optoelectronic Environment fully considered the characteristics of historical and modern buildings in Nangang District, utilizing the Building Envelope Intelligent Testing System and low-carbon lighting control technology to protect the treasures of historical architecture, practice energy conservation and emission reduction concepts, and achieve dual breakthroughs in technological innovation and environmental protection.

The project adopts a perfect fusion of laser performances, high-definition projection, and AR smart lighting technology with ice and snow culture, skillfully combining winter sports, historical culture, and winter elements. It protects the unique charm of historical buildings, showcases the beauty of the fusion of history and modernity, promotes ice and snow culture and the spirit of the Asian Winter Games, fills the nights of Nangang District with the vitality and charm of the Asian Winter Games, and achieves a dual enhancement of urban image and cultural heritage.

Roman Shares created a lighting enhancement project for the Asian Winter Games athletes' village and Gold Medal Plaza, immersively enhancing the atmosphere of the Asian Winter Games events and creating a high-quality accommodation experience, showcasing Harbin's enthusiasm and strength in welcoming athletes from around the world.

The hotel's exterior walls, signs, LOGO areas, etc., were all carefully designed with creativity; the clever combination of metal light boxes and lighting effects makes the hotel sparkle brilliantly at night, adding a bright landscape to the Ice and Snow City. The night views of Yabuli Mountain Resort and Skier's Home are particularly moving, with brilliant lights blending seamlessly into the surrounding ice and snow environment, making the nights of the Asian Winter Games dreamlike and surreal.

Roman Shares also created an immersive ice and snow space covering approximately 28,000 square meters for the Ice and Snow World, encompassing commercial dining, theme parks, and other business formats. Roman fully considered extended nighttime entertainment formats and the composite needs of creating year-round parent-child internet-famous check-in spots, meticulously refining existing spatial areas. Skillfully integrating the beauty of original architectural structures, based on a bright and elegant ice and snow consumption experience space, it uses dynamic and static combined light and shadow effects to strengthen scene differentiation and guidance, successfully enhancing scene memory points, and injecting a unique light and shadow aesthetic soul into the 'Four Seasons Tourism' IP.

In terms of scene creation, Roman creates thematic activity atmospheres and consumption scenarios through sky dome seasonal color changes and sky dome projection art. Indoor light and shadow will also flexibly change colors and interact according to different thematic activity needs, allowing tourists to immerse themselves completely, effectively extending play experience time, and driving a large consumption boom with small scenes. Sky dome projections echo the theme 'Ice and Snow Together, Asia United', pushing the spatial atmosphere to the climax of emotional resonance, and blooming with infinite charm of ice and snow experiences.

THORN Lighting utilizes the most advanced professional sports lighting technology to illuminate the venues for the opening ceremony of the Asian Winter Games and multiple competition sites.

Asian Winter Games Opening and Closing Ceremony Venue — Harbin International Exhibition Sports Center: THORN Lighting adopted CHAMPION 2C series 1000W luminaires with various beam angles, precision light control luminaires, and perfect lighting design, laying a solid foundation for the successful delivery of the project. According to the load-bearing restrictions on the ceiling, electrical boxes were concentrated on the ground, effectively distributing the ceiling load to the luminaire bodies. Luminaires were arranged uniformly at equal intervals on the five trusses on site, and the aiming angle of each luminaire was carefully adjusted to ensure that the illuminance within the venue met the project design requirements while maintaining an aesthetically pleasing arrangement of luminaires on the trusses.

Harbin Pingfang District Curling Hall: CHAMPION 2C series 600W luminaires were used. This luminaire, featuring flat-window optical distribution technology, is the core element that successfully completed this project. After comprehensive consideration of on-site conditions, A60 asymmetric optical distribution luminaires were used. The luminaires were installed between every two playing surfaces, and the projection direction of each luminaire was finely adjusted to meet the national standard Grade VI high-definition broadcast requirements for illuminance values and uniformity. All luminaires were installed with flat windows (emitting surface horizontal downward), and the projection direction avoided the athletes' line of sight, with a maximum glare rating of 18, far below the standard limit of 30. The successful delivery of this project verified that the luminaires can also meet the Grade VI curling lighting requirements even at an installation height of 6m.

Aerial Ski Competition Venue of the Winter Games — Yabuli Ski Resort U-Pool: THORN Lighting adopted AREAPAK series 900W luminaires, replacing the existing 1000W metal halide lamps from THORN Lighting on site. Measured illuminance values increased by approximately 2 times, reaching horizontal illuminance above 1400 lux and vertical illuminance of 1000 lux. The luminaires were selected with a 60-degree wide beam angle, and the projection direction was aligned with the athletes' forward movement direction, ensuring uniform track illuminance while avoiding light entering the athletes' field of vision and causing interference. The luminaires were equipped with cut-off shields, completely blocking uplight to prevent light pollution.

Yabuli Ski Resort at the Athletes' Village of the Asian Winter Games: THORN Lighting adopted the CHAMPION 2C series 1000W luminaires, utilizing various beam distributions. Wide beam optics illuminate areas near the poles, while a combination of medium and narrow beams covers distant areas. Each luminaire's projection angle was carefully adjusted on-site to ensure uniform illuminance on the ski slopes, eliminating light spots and dark zones. On-site measurements showed that the average horizontal illuminance at the mountain-top station of the cable car is ≥750 lux, and the average horizontal illuminance on the ski slopes is ≥300 lux. The luminaires are equipped with cut-off shields to completely block upward light spill, preventing light pollution.

As an ice hockey venue lighting design and execution team with international standards, Hubble Lighting participated throughout the renovation and expansion of the Harbin Ice Hockey Arena.

Taking into account the architectural characteristics of the ice hockey arena and combining national and international design standards, Hubble adopted a fully symmetrical double catwalk design and an asymmetric TC custom light distribution method. This effectively avoided interference from ice surface reflection glare during broadcasts affecting the main camera positions, greatly improving broadcast image quality and visual comfort for athletes during intense competition.

The renovated and expanded Harbin Ice Hockey Arena now features four NHL and KHL standard international ice rinks, with the main hall designed according to high-standard specifications for four events: ice hockey, curling, short-track speed skating, and figure skating.

At the opening ceremony scene, over 700 units of Mingdao fully protected lighting manufactured by Guangzhou-based Mingdao Culture Technology Group bathed the event in radiant light, adding vibrant color to this global occasion. It is reported that for the Asian Winter Games opening ceremony, the vast majority of professional stage lighting was provided by Mingdao products.