Lights, Camera, Festival!

If you’ve ever spent a frustrating afternoon putting up Christmas lights around the house, you no doubt realize the task is often more difficult than it seems. Try imagining stringing over a million tiny lights over a mile-long route. I can almost feel the crescendo of anxiety washing over your sweaty brow.

But for the past 10 years, that’s the Herculean task that crews at Moody Gardens have undertaken each year to present the Festival of Lights, which began on November 18 and continues through January 1. Featuring over one million lights and more than 100 sound enhanced, animated light scenes spread out along the trail that winds around Moody Gardens, the festival is one of the more unique holiday traditions in Texas.

“The trail begins at the visitor’s center and follows around to the Oleander Bowl, which opens to a large area featuring a big Christmas tree,” Moody Gardens’ Director of Facilities John Hughes said. “Once there, people can buy a variety of food from vendors and enjoy entertainment, including jugglers and seasonal characters. Plus, every Saturday night, we bring in some man-made snow to create the Snow Zone for kids.”

The festival is divided into 12 themed zones, including the “Rain Forest,” “Nativity,” “Nutcracker” and “African” zones. Each features audio and lighted displays specific to the particular zone’s theme. For example, the Rain Forest zone is highlighted by sounds made by native animals and insects, while the Nutcracker zone includes tunes from the famed ballet.

The man charged with making sure all the lights work and the audio embellishments are in sync is Paul Caronna, Moody Gardens’ chief engineer.

“Me and my crews spend about 5,000 hours in setting up the festival every year,” Caronna says. “We start refurbishing all of the lights and displays in late August and early September and beginning setting it up on October 1. I have six men refurbishing and six people setting up. It takes six electricians about four weeks to light it all up.”

Caronna says crews spend about four weeks tearing it all down and packing it away.

According to Caronna, coordinating the sound enhanced and animated scenes within the zones is done from a central control center.

One of the most popular attractions is the five-minute long Nativity scene that includes animated features that are activated at specific times as the story unfolds.

Caronna says advances in technology have worked to improve the experience for visitors and save time and money for Moody Gardens.

“At first, we used standard Christmas lights, but we started changing over to LED lights two years ago,” Caronna said. “They cut power by about nine tenths over the old display and they last longer.”

According to Caronna, it takes more than 60 miles of wiring to power the festival, which sees an average of 5,000 to 6,000 visitors on a typical Friday and Saturday night. He says the lights use about 510,000 watts (kw), enough juice to light about 25 three-bedroom, two-bath homes.

Caronna, Moody Gardens’ chief engineer for the past 14 years, says the first festival included about 35 displays on an approximately half-mile route.

Admission to the festival, open from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends through December 11 and daily December 15 through January 1, is $5.95. The festival includes an ice skating rink and holiday film screenings in the MG 3D Theater and the 4D Special FX Theater. During Food Drive Friday’s, guests receive two admissions for the price of one when they bring a non-perishable food item to benefit the Galveston Food Bank.