Garvan Gardens sees large crowds for Holiday Lights
The opportunity to see and pet live reindeer proved to be a big hit with Garvan Woodland Gardens visitors during the Holiday Lights display Monday night, with roughly three times the normal crowd turning out.
The lights display opened Saturday and through the first three days, the Garden has seen record numbers, with the caribou contributing a large part of the attendance, Bob Bledsoe, the Garden’s executive director, said Tuesday.
Historically, the garden has averaged around
1,000 visitors on Monday nights, Bledsoe said, noting that while he doesn’t have an official count yet, it was a record breaking number for a Monday.
“It was like three times what was expected,” he said, noting a rough estimate put the crowd at
3,200 people.
Bledsoe said he felt the reason so many people turned up Monday was because it was the first night the garden had live reindeer in attendance.
“We didn’t realize so many people wanted the reindeer experience,” he said.
While they were thrilled and “extremely happy” with the public’s turnout, Bledsoe said since they were expecting only 1,000 guests they only staffed for that many. Calling it a learning experience, Bledsoe said Monday “stressed our capacity.” Today is the last day to see the reindeer. The Garden has several new additions this season with one of the biggest the opportunity for guests to pre-order their tickets, which Bledsoe said has been popular. Attendance on Saturday was around 1,800 and around 1,200 on Sunday with about 60% of visitors having pre-bought their tickets, he said.
The new technology had some hiccups, but overall it seemed to go well and helped with the long lines to get in, he said.
“From a technology roll out, I think the learning curve, it will get more and more user friendly,” Bledsoe said.
Another new thing this year was having a tree lighting ceremony on the opening day.
“It went off really well,” Bledsoe said. For the event, Betty Millsap and Sunny Evans - and Evans’ family - pulled a large lever in front of the Schueck Rose Tree to light up the tree. Bledsoe said around 200 people gathered to watch the lighting.
“I expect that to get expanded on,” he said, noting in future years he could see them adding snow and marching bands to the tree lighting ceremony. “We’re always trying to improve the experience for visitors and our neighbors,” he said.