While a tree lighting, caroling, and holiday sales attract visitors, they happen only on certain days throughout the holiday season. However, an attractive holiday light display can be activated in mid-November and add to the festive atmosphere and drawing power of downtown every evening through January.
One of the best-known examples of this type of light display is Nights of Lights in St. Augustine, FL, which features about three million tiny white lights outlining nearly every historic building, business, tree, and light pole in the city center.
The lights can be viewed by foot, horse and carriage, trolley, boat, or from the top of a lighthouse. Local businesses and organizations build on the event, offering their own candlelight tours, sparkling outdoor courtyards, and other enticements to take advantage of the extra foot traffic. Nights of Lights draws tens of thousands of people to the area annually.
Every structure downtown need not be cascaded with lights to be eye-catching. In Libertyville, IL, white LED bulbs illuminate only downtown rooflines. The organization makes lights available to building owners at no cost, and has a contract with a holiday decoration management company to install and maintain them.
Another tack is to create an interesting light show. The Downtown Spokane Business Improvement District in Spokane, WA, purchased eight new projector lights that cast snowflake images on some of the city center’s most iconic locations.
Light shows also work well at a single location. A historic Inner Harbor power plant renovated for retail use in Baltimore, MD, is transformed annually into The Power Plant Holiday Light Spectacular.
The sound and light display was created to play for over 75 performances from mid-November through New Year’s Eve. Using the historic facade as a backdrop, the display projects video, lasers, lighting, and pyrotechnic effects.
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