This year’s Light Up The Night festival is promised to be bigger and better than years previous thanks to generous sponsors and community feedback, organizers say.
Guy Lapointe, community economic development manager for Lacombe, said there is a lot in store this year, including a special surprise that will be revealed during the tree lighting ceremony and lights show at the Lacombe Memorial Centre (LMC).
Light Up the Night will begin on Nov. 26th with a big band concert at the LMC and will run through until Nov. 29th, ending with a number of events that day.
“About two years ago when we started this, people kind of told us that the display at the LMC was a little underwhelming. This year, we got a bunch of sponsors involved and we’ve really been able to build this very cool display,” said Lapointe.
“There is actually about 50,000 lights at the LMC and we’re promising people a big surprise – it’s not so much about the lights but something else. We’re crossing our fingers that we’re going to be able to make it happen, we just have to get things going smoothly.”
Lapointe said he is excited to bring a great festival to the City this year.
Events are abundant and will include a number of things from the traditional Tim Hortons Santa Claus Parade, a ‘moonlight madness’ shopping experience, hay rides, a world record attempt to free movies and interactive activities on Cranna Lake.
There will be a slight change in the parade route this year, and Lapointe urges citizens to check online for the route so they can plan accordingly. The route will begin at McDonalds and then will head along the same path as years previous.
There will also be a lights competition that offers residential entries a chance to win a big screen TV.
“Every year there is sort of a residential and a commercial side to it – people can register by putting their address online before Nov. 27th. What we do is we actually post a map on the 27th that people can take and go check out the sights. Then citizens vote online for their favourite houses. First prize on the residential side of things is a big screen TV, and then we also do three random draws for gift cards at local grocery stores.”
For the families who don’t go all out when decorating, they can still enter their addresses for a chance to win one of the three grocery store gift cards. The only houses eligible for the big screen TV are those houses that have committed some serious decorating time.
The big day for the Festival is Nov. 27th.
There are wine tastings for the adults, a Christmas farmer’s market in the evening for families and either and ice slide or frozen throne for children in Lest We Forget Park.
“Wednesday, we kick off the event with a big band performance. Thursday is really a day of observation – the town tree is lit, the parade happens, there are things to shop around for. Friday will be more of the interactive day. We have a lot of activities planned down at Cranna Lake including ice sculpting and a fireworks display,” said Lapointe.
“Saturday is a great day to relax after everything. There will be some free Christmas movies at the theatre here in town, free swimming, the gift and craft sale. It gives people a day to slow down and relax after all of the fun.”
A full list of events, pricing and location details is available on the Lacombe Tourism web site. Submissions for both the residential and commercial decoration competition must be submitted by Nov. 27th.