Holiday lights tour heading downtown
Downtown Round Rock will be awash in holiday lights and displays in December following City Council approval to move the Rock’N Lights Holiday Light Tour to the heart of the city.
The effort will involve hundreds of thousands of lights wrapped around more than a hundred trees, lighting along the building facades facing Main Street and other decor such as garlands hanging on street lights.
City communications and marketing manager Kristin Brown said the tour is a convenient way for families to enjoy the holidays together and could have an added benefit of driving tourism to downtown.
“When we turn these lights on, we are going to get the biggest ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ we’ve ever received before,” she told council members during a recent regular meeting.
The light tour will stretch from the Main Street Prete Plaza, head west on Main Street and then south on Brown Street to Centennial Plaza.
The council approved the holiday lighting contract with Decor IQ, a company known for its holiday light displays on the San Antonio River Walk.
The council’s approval stipulated that the costs could not exceed $930,000 over the five-year contract, with the first year’s cost not to exceed $186,000.
Brown said the contract allows for the cost of light displays to increase by $10,000 each year through 2022. Businesses already have reached out to the city about being involved in the light tour, she said, and past events have proved to get “greater, bigger and better.”
Decor IQ will begin installing lights Monday, Brown said, with the lights turned on Dec. 1.
City Manager Laurie Hadley said the city would spend as much as $200,000 per year on the Rock’N Lights tour at Old Settlers Park.
The Round Rock Rotary Club’s Reindeer Run 5K and Family Fun Run will continue at Old Settlers Park, she said, since event organizers felt it would not work well in downtown.